A Bowl with a Different Shape

One of the great things about wood turning projects, is they don’t take a lot of setup. All you need is a blank and a way to mount it on the lathe, and you’re good to go.

I was waiting on a delivery this weekend, and figured a quick turning project was a good way to kill the time.

I was saving this piece of pecan for something, I just wasn’t sure what.

It’s about 5″ x 6″, and each corner is a little out of square. Even with the rough faces, you could tell this little piece has some character. Cutting a round blank out of this piece would have ruined it, so I decided to turn it just like it is.

After finding a rough center, and screwing on a faceplate, I turned the contour for the underside of the bowl, and made a recess in the bottom.

The recess serves two purposes. First, it ensures the bowl will sit flat on a table or shelf. Second, I’ll use it to turn the blank around to mount on a 4-jaw chuck to hollow out the inside.

This was my first time turning a non-round shape, so here’s where I found one of the challenges of turning forms like this. Since the back edge of each corner is unsupported as it spins into the cutting tool, the blank can split and chip out.

I pressed on and finished hollowing it out.

You can see the corner that chipped the worst, in the picture above.

My plan to deal with the corners was to clean them up with a block plane, and then sand the whole bowl smooth.

Since the blank started out as an odd shape, I thought the planed corners added to the overall look.

Sanding a shape like this a it spins isn’t practical and not entirely safe, so I used my orbital sander after taking it off the lathe.

After sanding, I gave the bowl a few coats of oil for a finish.

Like I said, there was a lot of character in that little piece of wood.

My delivery never showed up, hopefully it will early this week. It’s for the shop. I’ll update you when it gets here.