Adze finished

Re: Neander bowl -- no electrons killed

Dave Mount, NE Minnesota

>While I started chopping on that firewood mostly to see how the adze would work, I decided to go ahead and work the bowl out. I have a hewing axe I got off the bay, but a PO had put a backbevel on the darn thing and I haven't had the patience to grind away all the metal necessary to restore it. Sooo. . .I used a handsaw to cut off the major hunks of waste, then it was a bunch of drawknife work to remove the remaining waste on the outside. I used a vintage 2" buck gouge to clean up the inside a little better.

The bowl itself is pretty hunky, I didn't have the patience to really work it down thin. This picture is as it is now, dead green. I may decide to do more after it dries, or I may just leave it. SWMBO kind of likes the texturing from the gouge work.

Best,

Dave

P.S. I don't have a lathe and this is the first time I've ever made a bowl. What is the drying protocol for a green shaped bowl? Is cracking likely, particularly since I didn't work it down very thin (probably 1/2" thick walls, up to 3/4" in some places)? Thus far I just put it in a loosely closed paper grocery bag.

Wow, and suggestion

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Neat, Dave! very nice for your first use of your new adze.

I've never done this, but I've heard of turners who surround the bowl with chips from the work done in making it and then close up the bag.

But I've never felt I was successful at drying green wood, so don't listen to my advice, which is worth about one Weimar-era Deutschmark.

That's awesome

Jay Samuels

>I have two halves of a cherry log drying in the basement for the same treatment. I am going to try a reconstituted cooper's adze with a fairly short handle.

How were you able to work the end grain on the outsides of the bowl? Even on spoons made from wood of any hardness, I have needed rasps.

Re: sharp drawknife and dead green

Dave Mount, NE Minnesota

>Hey Jay, thanks for the kind words (you too Bill).

I did all the initial exterior shaping with the drawknife, endgrain included. However, this piece was dead green, wringing wet. I did clean up the outside a little more with a spokeshave, but that was to get better control and eliminate some of the larger facets, not because the endgrain was a problem for the drawknife. All that said, the endgrain work was done in much smaller bites than the work more with the grain. With the grain I was peeling off big swathes of wood. Working the endgrain was more like whittling. Also, I skewed the drawknife on the endgrain and used kind of a slicing motion.

On the inside, the adze cut the endgrain cleanly, as did the gouge. Both were pretty sharp (4000 water slip stone followed by LV green gunk), but I think the real secret is having the wood so green.

With an experience base of 1 bowl, I'm in no place to give advice, but from all I've read, you might want to rough our your cherry bowls while the wood is green instead of allowing them to dry. The difference in how the wood works is night and day between green and dry.

Either way, have fun with it.

Best,

Dave

Re: Wow, and suggestion

Ernie Miller

>Check on the turners board but I think they put the bowl in a container of Iso alchol.

Re: Posted the ? over there -- thanks!

Dave Mount, NE Minnesota

>

They both look real nice...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>You should be proud of both. I like the log holding rack also!

Re: Busted!

Dave Mount, NE Minnesota

>Ooops, you caught me Scott. I guess there were a couple 'lectrons that died putting that very refined log holding frame together. . .

That's the alcohol left over

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>from use with the waterstones, right?

Re: Busted!

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Real nice Dave, real real nice. I'm happy to see that that you got that adze finished off and that it's functional. Nice ob on that handle as well. I see the bowl as a bonus, which I'm sure you'll cherish for many many years. I'm sure the turners set you straight on how to dry it, but from what I understand you should weigh it, than put it in a brown paper bag for several months, and weigh it every so often until it stops losing weight than finish it off. I'm not sure on weather you should put shavings in the bag or not, but I can see it hurting anything. The idea is to reduce rapid moisture loss thus preventing cracking.

You still on the one-for-one program with your blacksmith mentor?

What's your next BSing project?

T.O.

Re: Hand and turning, not same

ThomD

>I've done a lot of green cherry bowls, it's one of the nicer free woods we get in this region. The drying protocol is variable, but basically the two comon choices are to turn to finished dimensions which need to be reasonably thin, like 1/4" - to as thin as you can make it. Then I would proceed to final sanding and finishing, if I was usuing an oil and/or wax finish. At that point the bowl looks finished, but will dry some more through the finish. I have never had a bowl crack like that unless it had some cracks in it to start with. It will become oval, however, since when it dries it will change shape unevenly.

The other method I use it to turn to about 3/4" wall, the actual dimension depends on the size of the bowl, and how much one thinks it will warp. Then I roughly wax the endgrain inside and out, and I pack back in some shavings, and I put it in a garbage bag. The idea is to take a few months to let the bowl dry. When the bowl stops loosing weight it's dry. I'll just guess at when to unpack the wet shaving or open up the bag a little more. I have only rarely lost a bowl done this way, but it certainly helps that roughing out a bowl on a machine takes only a few moments, so I don't worry too much about it. Once the bowl is dry, one re-mounts it on the lathe, and one turns it round out of the dried wood. This process leaves a round bowl, more or less.

One difference in working bowls on a lathe is that one can only make them round. So, one needs to make them either wholy round in one pass, or green rough turn them, and re-turn them ( or turn them out of dry wood which is pretty yucky). When working with hand tools you can make whatever shape you want so really, the methods used by turners should be little more than a guide. If a turner was to turn a bowl to .5", and it distorted enough during drying, that it would be partially turned away during returning, then he has lost that bowl, unless he wants to continue by other means. For the hand worker, the only issue would be whether you could get the final shape you were shooting for.

Some turners use PEG to stabilize wood. Sounds pretty awful to me, and again it's based on the needs of round turning.

I'm not sure it's polite to call it "BSing," Todd

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>

Lovely work... fast 'curing' tip

Conger � the Irish diaspora in Munich

>Dave,

During many moments of 'idleness' on holidays in the Alps, with my minimalist whittling / paring / carving tools along, I have carved a lot of small bowls / plates out of scrap found on site... invariably very green.

These WILL crack if left to mature alone. To avoid this, I have immersed them in oil (linseed, olive, whatever I could find... no, not engine!), and left them in direct sunlight to heat up. On a good day, the temperature of the oil can approach 100C. After a few cycles (3+? days... more for thicker / wetter pieces), the H2O content of the wood will have been reduced heavily, and been replaced by the oil. The bowls are oily, but stable. This method does not kill electrons, and is environmentally low-impact.

-gerard-

Re: Neander bowl -- no electrons killed

Larry G

>Bury the bowl in sawdust for a week or two, then do your final carving.

Nice!

Frank D. in Montreal

>Just a question: did you apply any blue (like gun blue) to the blade, or is the black coating from heat treating?

Thanks for showing us, great project.

Re: Nice!

Dave Mount

>Thanks Frank. The whole thing was ground/filed/sanded bright before the final shaping and hardening/tempering. Following that, the back of the blade (which you can't see) and the bevel were further finished by sanding to a bright finish. This is also important for removing the decarbeurized layer of steel from the cutting edge. For the rest, I used a soft wire wheel lightly to remove the seared oil gunk. This leaves a dark gun-metal sort of color, not unlike a nicely patina'd plane, except maybe less brown, more grey.

Best,

Dave

Re: Busted!

Dave Mount

>Hey Todd--

Yes, I'm still working with the smith. I have a straight drawknife that is nearly complete, I just need to heat treat it then clean it up and burn the handles on. I was going to make a hollowing shave out of it but I decided that the blade was too long for that (one of those "happy accidents"), so I'll make another for that use. I think I'll make another adze also, this time one that's better shaped for deep hollowing. I need to re-work my eye drift, I don't like the shape that well. I might take a crack at a tapered molding plane iron as well, just for fun. I'm not sure there's really a need for it, I sure haven't seen any problems with the untapered irons made from 1/8" stock, but it would be an interesting experiment.

This reminds me a lot of when I started woodworking. At first, almost everything seems difficult, almost too difficult to even try. Then you learn a little bit and things that seemed really intimidating before start to seem more doable. Making your own tools adds another (enjoyable) dimension to woodworking. And, as you know, blacksmithing gives you a whole other kind of rust to hunt for, one that is less often inflated in price beyond reality.

Best,

Dave

I had a feeling...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>

Re: Nice!

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Sounds like you've found yourself another SS to slide on as well. Do keep us updated on your future projects and progress. I for one find it very interesting. Who knows, one day I might even get a shed up and fire up my handcranker.

T.O.