I make wooden bowls. Here are a few of them.
This one is made from Sycamore, and it’s 12 inches in diameter, and 4 inches in height.
This one is also made from Sycamore, and it’s the same size as the other one.
And here’s a dish made from Spalted Hornbeam.
Spalting is when you put the wood in some nettles and let it rot a little bit, milling up the blank before it goes too far. It gives the grain of the piece a really unique look, but it’s a little harder to work into a finished shape.
To make a bowl, you take a piece of wood, much like this one …
… and mount it to the lathe with either a face plate or a big worm screw. Then you turn it at high speed, cutting away and shaping the outside of the bowl, leaving either a foot or a recess on the bottom.
When that’s done, you flip it over and remount it by that foot or recess, and begin to hollow out the inside of the bowl, until you have it at the thickness you want. Then you sand it, and apply nice finishes to make it shine.
I then usually take a photo of the bowl in my bath.
