On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:59:34 GMT, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Now there is a question I get a lot at wood shows. "How long does it take to
turn a bowl like that?" So what kind of an answer do you give? A couple of
hours? Three or four? I turn rough and let dry so some may take a couple of
months and some a couple of years until I get around to finish turning. Have
they taken months, years, or 2-3 hours?
I roughed out three salad bowls from spalted birch today. Each blank was
brought inside and roughed to shape with a chain saw. All the extra pieces
were picked up and tossed in a kindling box. A screw chuck was mounted. The
piece was mounted on the lathe. After turning each piece was coated with
anchorseal. Shavings were cleaned up and bagged for the compost pile.Tools
were sharpened frequently and at one point I remade the stop blocks for the
sharpening jig because the wheel was worn and the angles were off.
So how did it take to rough the bowls? 45 minute each? An hour each?
What do you enlightened folks say?

I did a fairly large (for my 14" lathe) ash bowl a few weeks ago for my wife...
as I was buffing it, I was kind of adding up the time spent on cutting the
blank, rough turning it, final turning, etc... I was REALLY glad that I wasn't
making this one to sell, because I hit about 5 or 6 hours BEFORE I added the
sanding, oiling and buffing time, which was at least 2 more hours...

I'd say that the "average" bowl has to take me about 3 or 4 hours from start to
finish, and I think that I work fairly fast... (at least a lot faster than I did
a few years ago)



mac

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