March Challenge - post your entries here

[nev]

(Again a little early because I'm still having reliability issues with my internet connection :evil: )


A Bowl - Supported or Suspended.

That is a bowl that has some means of preventing the bottom of the bowl from touching the surface beneath it.

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Along with a brief note about how you made it, what tools and finish you used, what wood (if known) and the objects dimensions. (this helps the judge and plagiarists ).

Please post 3 or 4 images of your work / entry as follows...

1 showing a general view
1 showing the inside of the bowl taken from above.
1 showing the underside of your bowl
1 optional photo showing any other feature you think might be of interest

Image size please use image size 640 x 480 0.3 mp, same previous months

Please upload your pics and description between ..

10pm on 1st April
and
10pm on the 3rd April

After this time the thread will be locked for Judging
Results will be given on or around the 5th

Any entry's that are outside the rules and requirements will not be judged
The Judges decision is final ( Any negative comments re judging must be via PM only and not on the open forum )
NO Critique or comments on any work until After the Judging and results.

Good luck.

 

[nev]

While I'm still connected....

Supported Bowl.

Bowl turned from the Palo Santo blank I've been saving since I first got my lathe, the base turned from what I think is cocobolo and the support legs from aluminium rod.
The bowl has turned out to be very tactile, its weight and smoothness just make you run it through your hands time and time again, almost feels like warm marble. Lovely (even if I do say so myself )

Started with the bowl. I had no idea what the finished article was going to be but I wanted a round bottomed bowl. Started on a 4" faceplate and turned the bottom leving a chucking spigot on the base.
Reversed the bowl, turned the inside, sanded and polished, also finishing the upper 3/4 of the outside too.
refitted it to button jaws and spigot removed and bottom shaped, blended, sanded and polished, to one continuous curve and thickness.

Then after much head scratching decided on the 3 supports, initially on a square base but I thought 1) that wouldnt be turning, and 2) I cant cut an accurate square! So round it was!

Started on a (hot) glue chuck, (underside)faced and edged. glue chuck removed, holes marked (off centre) and drilled, remounted in button jaws and and top faced flat. Then another glue chuck off centre on the underside and the dish put in the top side to reflect the base of the bowl.
This is where a 'design opportunity' popped up. I went too thin and straight through, hence the hole.
Sanded finished etc.
Turned the 3 support legs from 8mm aluminium rod down to 5mm using a spindle gouge and they are shaped so you can sit the bowl on the rounded tops or 'hook'the edge of the bowl under to have it displayed at an angle if so desired.

Tools Used:
Bowl and spindle gouge, round and flat scrapers. All sanded 150w, 240w, 360w, 400d, red and yellow pads, Ubeaut EEE polish. Ally legs continued to micromesh and brasso. (push fit in base)
Edit: I just remembered that I had to use wet and dry (w) and water to sand the bowl - my usual abrasive just clogged up.

As a bonus the bowl when sat on the table without its support sits level and returns to level when rocked. 8)

General view:

Inside bowl:

underside:

Support:

 

[dennisk]

Bowl of black walnut,supported by 3 old rusty nails of hard maple. I wanted to turn a bowl with legs that were different and I like to fool around with off center and eccentric stuff. I turned the bowl and sanded it and did the DO thing and then buffed it up. Using the excellent indexing on the Titan I was able to develop hole locates for the legs, marked and drilled them and then turned the legs. Only one is bent and I didnt want to straighten it out, so I used it anyway.I used gouges and a scraper for the bowl, and the nails were turned between centers for the straight ones , and between centers and then rechucked for the bent one. Nails just have rusty colored stain on them. Thanks dk

 

[henton49er]

Here is my entry for the March Challenge – a supported or suspended bowl.

I decided to opt for a suspended bowl, with the added challenge of getting the suspension to "look right".

My entry is in three pieces: the bowl , a mounting arm and a base plate, plus suspension cords.

The bowl is made from spalted beech and was turned in the usual manner (mounted on a screw chuck, outside turned including mounting spigot, piece reversed into chuck jaws and inside turned. Piece reversed again and mounted on a jam chuck to finish outside and to remove the spigot). A thin v-groove was turned near the top to act as a locating notch for the suspension cords. Four 1.5mm diameter holes were drilled in the v-groove through which to pass the cord. Inside and outside of the bowl were hand sanded from 120 to 400, cellulose sanding sealer applied and re-sanded at 400. A single coat of microcrystalline wax was applied and lightly buffed. The bowl is a perfect hemisphere, 100mm diameter and 50mm deep overall. The walls of the bowl are 4mm thick throughout. Tools used were 3/8” and ¼” bowl gouges, skew chisel and rounded scraper.

The mounting arm for the bowl is made from sycamore – the internal radius is 75mm and the outside radius is 87.5mm, with its centre offset by 25mm. A flat sycamore blank was turned on a glue chuck to a diameter of 175mm and 15mm thickness. It was then removed from the lathe. The150mm diameter was cut on a band saw using a circle cutting jig. The holes were drilled using forstner bits in a pillar drill (25mm, 20mm and 15mm diameters). The piece was then sanded and ebonised. The grain of the sycamore shows through the ebonising, which I find to be an attractive finish.

The base plate is a 150mm by 50mm piece of 18mm thick MDF, sanded and ebonised. The mount was attached to the base plate using pins and Titebond glue. Pins were also attached at the top of the mount to take the suspension cords from the bowl.

The suspension cords are gold metallic threads which somehow resemble tiny gold chains, in my view. The bowl hangs such that it is concentric with the inner radius of the mounting arm.

The overall piece is approximately 195mm tall.

A very interesting challenge which was more difficult to design and to plan the turning than it was to make. It took a bit of time to get the suspension cords the right length to make the bowl hang both horizontally and concentrically with the mount.

 

[andersonec]

My humble offering is a bowl made with some Yew.
It is in total 115mm high, 165mm dia, the base is 70mm high and 70mm dia.
The exterior of the bowl was done first, mounted onto a faceplate chuck, turned using a bowl gouge and then a mortise was made in the bottom to take the base, it was finished with dilute shellac and two coats of wax.
The base was then turned, firstly between centres into a cylinder and a spigot cut on one end, it was then put into a chuck and a tenon turned on the facing end to fit snug and flush into the mortise previously cut into the bottom of the bowl, it was then turned into the shape required with a spindle gouge and finished as previous.
The bowl and base were then glued together with pva and left indoors overnight to dry, the base was not removed from the chuck to do this for fear of not relocating the base centrally in the chuck.
The chuck was then remounted into the lathe and the inside of the bowl turned, using a bowl gouge and spindle gouge, then finished as before.
The spigot was then cut off the base by hand and a piece of felt stuck over the bottom to hide the rough cut as it would have took me all week to sand the end grain plus it is nicer on the furniture when it is put down.

Andy

 

[Sheptonphil]

Hi all

My effort for the March challenge is a bowl turned in Elm with a foot of Rosewood.

I started by making the foot out of a piece of Rosewood I had. This was turned between centres and finished with a 35mm spigot about 30mm long at the top. this was sanded to 200, then sanding sealer and left unfinished. I then started on the bowl, starting on a screw chuck I used a 3/8" gouge to rough out the exterior and make the dropped rim. I then made a 6mm deep mortice to take the spigot of the foot, which was dovetail recessed to also use to hold the bowl in chuck jaws. I them put the foot in the spigot, supported with the tailstock and finished the final shaping of the top 1/3 of the foot and bowl underside together to get the correct flow from foot to bowl. The underside of the bowl and whole foot was sanded to 400, sealer, abranet and nyweb to 1200. Bowl was reversed onto O'donnell jaws, and inside shaped to 8mm thick all over following external shape with a 3/8 bowl gouge. Sanded as before to 1200. The two parts were individually buffed using the Beall system, finishing with Carnauba wax then finally glue joined and pressed together to set with the tailstock and a pad over a bowl shaped form at the head end . The bowl is 20cm in diameter and 14cm tall.

 

[Silverbirch]

Here is my entry - a supported bowl.
Timber is oak, except for the uprights which are poplar.The bowl is an end grain orientation, hollowed with a hollowing tool. The decorative indentations were done using a dremel type tool. The bowl is finished with finishing oil, the black parts with black aerosol lacquer.
Overall height is 320mm. The bowl itself is 135mm tall X 90mm diameter.

Ian

 

[monkeybiter]

Wow! Braved the cold , experimented with magnetic levitation prototypes, braved more cold, finally finished, and then I'm nearly almost put off posting my entry due to the extremely high standards now becoming commonplace in this comp. Hey ho, here's my effort.
The bowl is, I think , a fruit wood, the base seems a little like Elm to me. Both were unmarked gifts some time ago and both turned very nicely/easily. The spikes were the most difficult to 'shape' on the lathe as the flexed all over, and I haven't constructed a steady [yet].
The finish is base layers of beeswax with a topcoat of Microcrystalline.
The lah-di-dah concept was an attempt at a dynamic piece, to look like the bowl has made momentary contact with a liquid base, causing a splash [the spikes] and leaving concentric ripples. The bottom of the bowl is shaped with a 'drip' that aligns with the centre of the waves on the base.

Thanks for looking.

 

[heatherw]

Just as well we're an hour ahead here.

My entry for the March challenge is a work in progress, this is mark III and no doubt tomorrow or the next day there will be a mark IV. I've done lots of new things, I'd never used a glue chuck before, for instance, a very messy business. And I haven't really made a bowl before, so I had to sharpen up the gouge and figure out how it worked. Thank goodness for scrapers......

The neighbour has recently been cutting down plum trees, he has an orchard with some very old trees and the ones he cut down were already dead with some suspiciously woodwormy holes up the heartwood. But I saw the colours from 200m away and rushed over to beg some trunks off him. I'll have to be a bit more patient, I think, but I couldn't resist trying to do something with it since it isn't exactly green. It isn't exactly dry either......

So here we go, a supported bowl.

My camera battery ran out half way through photo taking and camera 2 proved to have no battery either. So these are the best of a bad lot.

The bit I enjoyed most, oddly enough, was making the cones. I can see myself designing excuses for making more of them. The bowl was more or less what I wanted, but the wood was so cracked that I didn't dare decorate the rim which was my initial idea. I have no Cole jaws and no time to make them, so I carved off the chucking bit on the bottom of the bowl and sanded it, this wood is so hard that it came up beautifully, though there are a few gouge marks where I kept changing my mind what I was doing.

What I can't figure out is how my bandsaw can cut plum up to its 8" maximum depth with no problem, while I was trying to cut a bit of poplar half the thickness the other day and it was all over the place