I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

Arch wrote:
I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?

Go for it Arch! Who knows you might end up exporting the finished
product back to Asia to give them something to think about :-)

Jeez Arch, great idea. They do all the rough work and you add the finesse,
bump the price a bunch and flog it as your own!

Hmmm...well, maybe not....I guess if the value/art added was enough it would
be somewhat palatable but the idea, as tempting as it is, does give me
pause. I think I'll give it a go! but only to see if I could improve on
the first turner's effort. It would be deflating if the original was as good
as it got

Tom


"Arch" wrote in message
...
I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

They should not be purchased for any reason or your dollars will
support virtual slave wages and child labor in some third world
country. That being said I still do it but I always feel bad when I
think about the conditions it was likely made in.

God Bless the impoverished,
Al Kyder

Arch wrote:
I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

True, the people who make these are virtually slaves.
If you buy you are rewarding their masters.
If you don't buy, they don't work and starve to death.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't


Tom


"Al Kyder" wrote in message
oups.com...
They should not be purchased for any reason or your dollars will
support virtual slave wages and child labor in some third world
country. That being said I still do it but I always feel bad when I
think about the conditions it was likely made in.

God Bless the impoverished,
Al Kyder

Arch wrote:
I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

It would be nearly impossible for me to live in the United States
without buying something with "China" or somewhere east of Suez stamped
on it. I recognize the huge socio-economic problem, but it's far more
than about woodturning so I'll leave that for other forums and ask:

Why do you turn simple small salad bowls? Pleasure? rent paying sales,
gifts, what?

What are your opinions re the ethics and utility of 'finishing'
pre-turned bowls, imported or domestic, as your own with and without
acknowledging? Think about it. Where does it end? Carried to an
absurdity, should we acknowledge the timber merchant, then the tree
grower, then the flea market, then the.....
Why? Why not?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

If the item costs 3 to 10X, is there no slave making it? Profits go into
the same pocket, whether 1 dolor or 10.

"T. Dougall" wrote in message
...
True, the people who make these are virtually slaves.
If you buy you are rewarding their masters.
If you don't buy, they don't work and starve to death.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't


Tom


"Al Kyder" wrote in message
oups.com...
They should not be purchased for any reason or your dollars will
support virtual slave wages and child labor in some third world
country. That being said I still do it but I always feel bad when I
think about the conditions it was likely made in.

God Bless the impoverished,
Al Kyder

Arch wrote:
I saw some acacia salad bowls in the local Target store today. They are
not unattractive and they should function well. The wood is quite bland,
but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad. The finish was about on par with the salad bowls I turn
for use. The walls are nicely curved and the bottoms are no longer flat
discs glued to straight staved sides. The 12" X 10" (I didn't measure).
were ~ $18. Smaller, individual bowls were much cheaper. I wouldn't
object to being served a nicely built well dressed salad in one.

But what's a woodturner to do? I could continue to make salad bowls,
but make them special with special wood or special embellishments. I
could continue to make bland unadorned wood salad bowls and just enjoy
the journey in making them, but the collecting, drying and prepping of
the blanks for the journey isn't all that much fun anymore.

One other approach occurs to me and I wonder what you think? If you
can't beat 'em, join 'em... If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. So
how about a Target-Arch Collaboration?

Is there anything wrong with buying a cheap imported bowl at Dollar
Store, flea market or thrift shop and re-turning it with a few added
coves. beads, distresses, scorches, textures, carvings and whatever
other mayhem I might choose to inflict on the poor vessel to hide its
far Eastern ancestry and increase its artistic value?
Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

"Al Kyder" wrote in message
oups.com...
They should not be purchased for any reason or your dollars will
support virtual slave wages and child labor in some third world
country. That being said I still do it but I always feel bad when I
think about the conditions it was likely made in.

God Bless the impoverished,
Al Kyder

We should bless their efforts to earn their way in the world by providing a
market. What they receive for their efforts, though insignificant by US
standards may be the only cash money in the household.

Can't live on the dole where the principle of "he who does not work does not
eat" is the rule.

but salad bowls shouldn't upstage the silverware and china, certainly
not the salad.

WHY THE HELL NOT??? Maybe this is your difficulty. Maybe you mistakenly believe
that salad bowls MUST be bland, therefore you are not in the quandry of dealing
with bland salad bowls. You are the victim of our own perpetration.

Dan

..and a happy Labor Day to you too Dan.
Sorry about your quandry. Not sure if you are kidding, or if I touched a
nerve or if your response is a paradigm of the nonsequiter?

Whatever, you have a constitutional right to any kind of salad bowl you
fancy. IIRC, separation of bowl and bland is in article I.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings

.and a happy Labor Day to you too Dan.

Sarcasm? From Arch? Surely not! Just so you know, I went to work on Labor
Day.

Sorry about your quandry. Not sure if you are kidding, or if I touched a
nerve or if your response is a paradigm of the nonsequiter?

I have no quandry, I was clarifying yours. I am not the one with the
self-limiting paradigm. Dan


PS: non sequitur

Dan,

In truth, I was piqued at your post and I retorted with sarcasm without
thinking. I suspect this tempest in a salad bowl is likely due to the
misunderstandings of the internet and we both would be ashamed to engage
in it face to face. It adds nothing to rcw so let's stop it. ok?

ps, you know I can't resist; quandary.

Regards, Arch

On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:33:59 -0400, Arch wrote:


Is my crime so much different from buying a dried, saran wrapped, end
grain coated maple blank? You think?


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter

Arch, the term "collaborative" implies, to me, the informed consent of all
parties concerned. I'm not sure it applies in the circumstance you
delineated.

The way I see matters the original turner has no further affiliation with
that bowl. To him / her it is 'finished product'. To most of the
purchasers of that bowl it is also 'finished product' ... just as firewood
is generally classified as being 'finished product'. But there is a group
of people to whom 'finished product' is no more than an intermediate step
in a larger process.

I would consider such a bowl analogous to a piece of firewood plucked from
the stack that is just further along in its processing ... but not yet
done. It is 'done' when I finish with it ... even if my customer decides
to embellish it further.

Relax. Grab another piece of raw material and turn, turn, turn! ;-)

Bill

ps, you know I can't resist; quandary.

LOL!