first proper bowl comment and criticism please

[ukskin]

first Plate produced
the grain seemed fairly open although this could just be me being a newbie
comments & criticism welcome
wood identification would be greatly appreciated too

 

[JustBen]

Very nice.
It looks like oak to me.
I can't see any faults with it.

 

[EnErY]

That looks a dam good effort for A first attempt well done just wish mine was as good keep it up =D> =D>

Regards
Bill

 

[Paul Hannaby]

The wood looks like it might be iroko. Good for a first attempt. Can we see the back too?

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Excellent job. Well proportioned and the finish looks nice. I would also suggest its Oak. Was it dry? If not it will soon be a different shaped plate

 

[ukskin]

cant say how dry it was as haven't got a moisture meter yet but its very far from wet
on the subject of moisture meters what is a good one to get .. budget is £100

 

[Neil Lawton]

This is a great first bowl.
I have to agree with Paul, that this is Iroko, I have rather a lot of the stuff.
Iroko usually has a "greasy" feel to it, straight off the tool, due to its oily nature.
Regards,
Neil

 

[Dalboy]

Nice Plate/platter especially for a first. At first the top picture I though Iroko and then looked at the second which looked a bit like sapele But I will bow to my piers like Paul and Neil who have had a lot more experience in these matters

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I got a moisture meter from Aldi for very little (under £20) and its turned out to be fine. Its only a guide but it's readings typically correspond with what I would expect from the timber I've tested so far.

 

[Paul Hannaby]

I wouldn't waste your money on a moisture meter. I've been turning for many years and have yet to find a use for one.

There are probably far more useful things you could buy instead!

 

[Spindle]

Hi

Ditto regarding not bothering with a moisture meter. Whilst they work for wood that has had plenty of time to stabilise or has been correctly kiln dried they only measure the content very near to the surface, for home dried wood the reading is liable to be misleading.

If you're conditioning your own wood from wet I would suggest periodically weighing the blanks and waiting until they stop losing weight as a better method of indicating stability.

Regards Mick

 

[winemaker]

nice bowl

 

[CHJ]

I wouldn't waste your money on a moisture meter. I've been turning for many years and have yet to find a use for one.

There are probably far more useful things you could buy instead!

I would not advise you to try and construct any segmented items similar to those I play with Paul without one.

Someone is bound to move them between cool rooms and radiator shelves and unless great care has been taken with moisture content and grain orientation the inevitable will happen.

 

[Teepeg]

Very nice plate for a first attempt excellent shape .. I could think of better things to spend with £100 to be honest ...

 

[tekno.mage]

Nice looking plate - especially if it was your first attempt. The wood doesn't look like oak to me - more like one of those brown "exotics" that was meant to stand in for mahogany - if so, it was probably not an easy or pleasant wood to turn.

 

[nicguthrie]

Very nice indeed. It looks very much like a mystery wood that I've been told is Iroko too. I got some from a local timber merchant that was used as a load bearer under their deliveries.

Nice shape and proportions, and it looks like not a bad finish too. I'm new to the whole scene as well, and I see you seem to have some of the same trouble as me with flat areas picking up lines from either the turning or finishing. It's not bad in your plate, I just noticed it straight away cos I've been working hard to eliminate it in my own stuff.

As a fellow beginner I know I'm (hopefully) not out of line to suggest what someone suggested to me, if you have a very open looking grain like that and want to minimise it, (assuming you do) try putting several generous layers of cellulose sanding sealer on, and cutting back between coats lightly with abrasive. I did it with an oak bin lid last week, and although the finish was not perfect, it was much improved on its first iteration. (I had to redo it as the grain was so open that it hadn't sealed properly with the wax and shellac finish I'd used, and went "hairy" where a drop of water hit it)

Nic.

 

[MMUK]

£100 to play with? I'd be spending that on new hand tools

 

[CHJ]

Regarding sanding tracks being visible as mentioned above, try rotational sanding with ether a friction driven device or better still a slow speed hand drill.

That way you eliminate the tendency to score continuous scratches around the piece which the eye/brain combination seems to enhance by joining the dots to make them appear more distinctive than they would be if shorter and more random.

If you don't yet have the tooling for rotary sanding then finish off your sanding with the lathe stationary and work with the grain, scratches made with 240 grit with the grain direction will not be rendered by your eyes anywhere near as well as those produced by 320-400 grit made across the grain.

It is very rarely that a piece I work on does not get hand sanded as a final inspection stage, usually just to 240 grit, working with the grain rather than bothering to chase down any further with the grits which I have found in practise was still more likely to produce missed visible cross grain blemishes when finally finished.

 

[Paul Hannaby]

Hi Chas,
I take your point that segmented work needs stable wood but I'm sure you will agree that rather than use a moisture meter, allowing the wood to stabilise in the intended environment would be an alternative approach.

All it takes is time and patience!

 

[CHJ]

Hi Chas,
I take your point that segmented work needs stable wood but I'm sure you will agree that rather than use a moisture meter, allowing the wood to stabilise in the intended environment would be an alternative approach.

All it takes is time and patience!

Agreed for one piece items that are to be displayed and used in normal home environment with approx. 12% moisture.
But even such pieces left on a south facing windowsill or in a conservatory will either split or distort as they drop in moisture content.
The problem when you have 'engineered' pieces is that if due care is not taken to grain direction and moisture content, as soon as shrinkage occurs in a constrained direction wood or joints have to let go.
If you can start off with wood at say 6% (or less if possible) and arrange that the inevitable exposure to 12-15% conditions only results in compressive forces you are more likely to get away with unwanted failures.

And those sort of low levels will never occur naturally in a UK workshop.

Assemble lids such as these with naturally dried wood at 10-12% will inevitably generate a 30% wastage at least due to movement especially with wood with such differing characteristics as Walnut and Oak.