Black Walnut Bowl Blank/Predestination ? ? ?
 

Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood? Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

You see, I have this nice Black Walnut bowl blank which I thought was
certain to become a nice walnut bowl and end up in a gallery or at least a
craft shop. Well, its seems I don't know much about predestination, for it
seems in spite of my best efforts this Black Walnut blank is hurtling
through time and space towards someone's fireplace.

Last week, I posted about problems I was having getting a smooth cut on the
outside. Tonight, I was hollowing the inside and got a catch. The 2" foot
ripped right off the bowl and it went sailing across the shop. I glued the
foot back on and will try yet again to help this bowl reach its
gallery/craft shop. Or, should I just fast-forward a few hours, accept fate
and toss it back into the firewood pile from which it came?

After all, who am I to tamper with destiny?

Barry

Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?
Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be
firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

I had a wonderful maple/pau ferro vase that I was working on (man, does
Pau Ferro look good!), but no matter how much effort I put into it, one
thing after another kept going wrong. And I mean *wrong*. Finally, I just
threw it all away, feeling like a complete failure.

On the other hand, I bought a large block of blackheart sassafras to make
a wedding gift for a close friend. When I bought it, I had the bowl I
wanted to make exactly planned out. I got it home, and every time I was
about to mount it, I just couldn't do it - I had to take another look at it.
Finally, I decided to just flip it over and mount it the other way. Once I
had, I looked closely at the spalting that makes blackheart sassafrass so
beautiful, and realized that if I shaped the bowl within a very close
tolerance, I could get the edges of the bowl to come in and out of the
spalting several times on both sidesfor a very striking effect.. The bowl
ended up being the most beautiful piece that I've ever turned.

steve

"Barry N. Turner" wrote in message
.. .
Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?
Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be
firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

You see, I have this nice Black Walnut bowl blank which I thought was
certain to become a nice walnut bowl and end up in a gallery or at least a
craft shop. Well, its seems I don't know much about predestination, for
it
seems in spite of my best efforts this Black Walnut blank is hurtling
through time and space towards someone's fireplace.

Last week, I posted about problems I was having getting a smooth cut on
the
outside. Tonight, I was hollowing the inside and got a catch. The 2"
foot
ripped right off the bowl and it went sailing across the shop. I glued
the
foot back on and will try yet again to help this bowl reach its
gallery/craft shop. Or, should I just fast-forward a few hours, accept
fate
and toss it back into the firewood pile from which it came?

After all, who am I to tamper with destiny?

Barry


====Barry! I am afraid that you are confusing destiny with karma.
Apparently this Black Walnut was very naughty in its previous life and is
now suffering from those actions. As to its destiny, that is yet to be seen
and can only be speculated upon. Your projection may very well be right,
but its faith could still be altered with the proper application of LDD. No
guaranties here, just a suggestion to put the walnut back on the path of
enlightenment and possible eventual liberation into the Nirvana of a
beautiful bowl. *G*

Leif

P. S. Just finished re-glazing a window behind my lathe for the second time
due to karmic actions resulting from apparent good wood behaving badly. I
think I have resolved the issue by using plexiglass, and will be putting
hardware screen on spacers in front of the window. Knowing that the Law of
Unintended Consequences is continually in action, it will probably result in
the next airborn chunk hitting the hardware cloth screen and bouncing right
back at me! *G*

Some days bring success, others simply suck cess.

I find myself getting angry at a piece that isn't cooperating, and taking
"make or break" cuts occasionally.

"Barry N. Turner" wrote in message
.. .
Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?

Last week, I posted about problems I was having getting a smooth cut on
the
outside. Tonight, I was hollowing the inside and got a catch. The 2"
foot
ripped right off the bowl and it went sailing across the shop. I glued
the
foot back on and will try yet again to help this bowl reach its
gallery/craft shop. Or, should I just fast-forward a few hours, accept
fate
and toss it back into the firewood pile from which it came?

After all, who am I to tamper with destiny?

Barry

Presestined to salad bowl or predestined to the fires of kindling? There is
a good sermon illustration here for a reformed Presbyterian.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com

Barry,
I feel your pain brother. I've got a 15" cherry bowl that I have been
working on and it is driving me crazy. No matter how I cut or scrape, oil
lubrication, wax lubrication water lubrication, I could not get the wood to
cut without tearout. I finally got the tearout down to a minimum and
resigned myself to using the 80 grit gouge. Again trying every lubrication,
power sanding and hand sanding. No matter what I could not remove the
previous grits marks. Well after 3 hours of sanding just the inside I
thought I finally had a pretty good finish. I put some water on it to raise
the grain and sanded that off only to find I still had some pretty bad
scratches. ARGHHHHH!!!!! Then I tried to add a texture band to the outside
using the Sorby texturing tool (which I have had great success with on other
woods). Well this cherry just refused to be textured, the tool just
wouldn't cut a pattern into it. I have no idea why. I finally opted for a
wire brush texture. At this point I'm afraid to try sand the outside, I
don't think I can handle another 3 hours of sanding without going off the
deep end.

Some pieces of wood just refuse to enter the after life of bowldom and would
rather burn in Hades (or the fireplace). Thanks for sharing your pain.
Tony Manella
ndd1"at"prolog.net (remove "at")
http://home.ptd.net/~ndd1/
Lehigh Valley Woodturners
http://www.lehighvalleywoodturners.com/

"Barry N. Turner" wrote in message
.. .
Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?
Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be
firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

You see, I have this nice Black Walnut bowl blank which I thought was
certain to become a nice walnut bowl and end up in a gallery or at least a
craft shop. Well, its seems I don't know much about predestination, for
it
seems in spite of my best efforts this Black Walnut blank is hurtling
through time and space towards someone's fireplace.

Last week, I posted about problems I was having getting a smooth cut on
the
outside. Tonight, I was hollowing the inside and got a catch. The 2"
foot
ripped right off the bowl and it went sailing across the shop. I glued
the
foot back on and will try yet again to help this bowl reach its
gallery/craft shop. Or, should I just fast-forward a few hours, accept
fate
and toss it back into the firewood pile from which it came?

After all, who am I to tamper with destiny?

Barry

Let me know, I would like to see a copy

James
www.cryscom.nb.ca


Darrell Feltmate wrote:
Presestined to salad bowl or predestined to the fires of kindling? There is
a good sermon illustration here for a reformed Presbyterian.

Barry

Life is too short to turn onery wood!

Ray

James wrote:
Let me know, I would like to see a copy
Please post it as an OT. Take that Vito. It's an interesting
allegory.

Dave in Fairfax
--
Dave Leader
reply-to doesn't work
use:
daveldr at att dot net
American Association of Woodturners
http://www.woodturner.org
Capital Area Woodturners
http://www.capwoodturners.org/

"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message ...
Presestined to salad bowl or predestined to the fires of kindling? There is
a good sermon illustration here for a reformed Presbyterian.


================================================== ================
The problem with the Walnut is not bad karma! Every piece of wood
knows what it wants to be. All we have to do is to look and listen to
the wood and it will tell us.

I have not given up on a piece of spalted Hackberry. It came from a
downed tree on the golf course where I work. I thought it would be
nice to turn a hollow form, in the shape of a globe. I turned a tennon
on the wet wood and proceeded to make a globe. I was just about done
with the outside when the tennon blew off and the piece flew across
the room.

Ok--------it will be a little smaller globe! Next, I turned a
recessed flange on the bottom and fitted it to a Talon chuck. It held
well enough for me to get about half of the inside done. There was a
neat flaw that had spalted and looked great. While trying to finish
the inside, the side blew out. Now, no way the piece is going to be a
globe! It decided to be a small bowl! Finally that's what it will
be----------when I get enough guts to mount it again and finish
turning it. As an aside, the wet wood has dried and is
verrrrrrrrrrrrry hard!

I had a beautiful piece of Cherry and was going to turn a "falling
leaf" bowl. As I started to remove wood from the outside corners to
start developing the leaves, the points chipped off! Didn't want to be
that! So I decided to just cut two concave surfaces on the outside and
let it go at that. Lookin' great, but suddenly there are the start of
diamonds showing up at the center-line of the piece.

Turned out to be a great looking piece.

I know this is long, but I hope you understand. Wood and Nature
control what we do.

Thanks for reading.

The Other Bruce

"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message
...
Presestined to salad bowl or predestined to the fires of kindling? There
is
a good sermon illustration here for a reformed Presbyterian.
============================
Darrell,
What does a Presbyterian do that they have to reform from??

Ken Moon
Webberville, TX

I had/have two beautiful English walbut blanks, about 6" on a side, that I
wanted to turn into semi-enclaosed vessels. Turned one wet, the other a
year latr.

Both got massive chunks blown off the outside, and both broke off
their tenons in my chuck. Never had such bad luck with anything else,
from maple to boxwood, ebony to alder.

My sympathies!


-- Andy Barss

I had/have two beautiful English walbut blanks, about 6" on a side, that I
wanted to turn into semi-enclaosed vessels. Turned one wet, the other a
year latr.

Both got massive chunks blown off the outside, and both broke off
their tenons in my chuck. Never had such bad luck with anything else,
from maple to boxwood, ebony to alder.

I had a beeee-yoo-tiful peace of gum vein eucalyptus, and turned an
incredible bowl out of it. I decided it was done, and started to put down
the chisel. Then I thought "No, I'm going to take just one last light pass
over the inside of it." And when I say light, I mean *light*. Still, the
second the chisel touched it, boom, pieces all over the garage.

I got the pieces and reassembled them, and with all of the gum veins,
there were only a few tiny sections holding half of the bowl together. I'm
amazed it could even stand the g-forces of spinning on the lathe, let alone
me having carved most of it away in the first place.

steve

Thanks........sympathy does help! Barry


"Tony Manella" ndd1 at prolog.net wrote in message
...
Barry,
I feel your pain brother. I've got a 15" cherry bowl that I have been
working on and it is driving me crazy. No matter how I cut or scrape, oil
lubrication, wax lubrication water lubrication, I could not get the wood
to
cut without tearout. I finally got the tearout down to a minimum and
resigned myself to using the 80 grit gouge. Again trying every
lubrication,
power sanding and hand sanding. No matter what I could not remove the
previous grits marks. Well after 3 hours of sanding just the inside I
thought I finally had a pretty good finish. I put some water on it to
raise
the grain and sanded that off only to find I still had some pretty bad
scratches. ARGHHHHH!!!!! Then I tried to add a texture band to the
outside
using the Sorby texturing tool (which I have had great success with on
other
woods). Well this cherry just refused to be textured, the tool just
wouldn't cut a pattern into it. I have no idea why. I finally opted for
a
wire brush texture. At this point I'm afraid to try sand the outside, I
don't think I can handle another 3 hours of sanding without going off the
deep end.

Some pieces of wood just refuse to enter the after life of bowldom and
would
rather burn in Hades (or the fireplace). Thanks for sharing your pain.
Tony Manella
ndd1"at"prolog.net (remove "at")
http://home.ptd.net/~ndd1/
Lehigh Valley Woodturners
http://www.lehighvalleywoodturners.com/

"Barry N. Turner" wrote in message
.. .
Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?
Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be
firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

You see, I have this nice Black Walnut bowl blank which I thought was
certain to become a nice walnut bowl and end up in a gallery or at least
a
craft shop. Well, its seems I don't know much about predestination, for
it
seems in spite of my best efforts this Black Walnut blank is hurtling
through time and space towards someone's fireplace.

Last week, I posted about problems I was having getting a smooth cut on
the
outside. Tonight, I was hollowing the inside and got a catch. The 2"
foot
ripped right off the bowl and it went sailing across the shop. I glued
the
foot back on and will try yet again to help this bowl reach its
gallery/craft shop. Or, should I just fast-forward a few hours, accept
fate
and toss it back into the firewood pile from which it came?

After all, who am I to tamper with destiny?

Barry

I agree.............Now...............After spending several hours turning
on this piece of ornery wood. You know I think my problem was the chuck. I
started with the Supernova chuck, but turned the foot too small and had to
use the Nova Compac chuck. I didn't have a firm grip on the foot and the
blank was moving slightly when I tried to make a cut. I reversed the blank
and brought the tailstock up and it is doing much better.

Barry


"Ray Sandusky" wrote in message
...
Barry

Life is too short to turn onery wood!

Ray

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

Presestined to salad bowl or predestined to the fires of kindling? There is
a good sermon illustration here for a reformed Presbyterian.

Like I always say Darrell, "Turn or Burn!"
g

....Kevin
--
Kevin & Theresa Miller
Juneau, Alaska
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb