Bob Easton

Chocolate powered woodworking

bowl carving

Bowl #3

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Silver Maple. Length: about 9″  Width: about 3 1/2″  Height: about 3″  Finish: food safe flaxseed oil

My inspiration for starting bowl carving was David Fisher’s “bitty bowl.”  I’ve followed David for a long while and admire all of his bowls. This one moved me to action, wanting to learn bowl carving and to mimic the sweet little “bitty bowl.”  The rest is a series of learning exercises, bowl #1 and bowl #2.

This bowl is from the same silver maple tree as the earlier bowls, and is much smaller due to an onerous knot in the log, and the desire to make a “bitty bowl.”  I completed the bowl in late November 2019, passed it along to a recipient about a month later and have been remiss in documenting the result.  (Hence, the approximate measures, didn’t write down precise measurements.)

My proportions are a bit different than Fisher’s, but instructive in learning how to design bowls.

Bowl #2

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Silver Maple. Length: 14 1/2″  Width: 5 3/4″  Height: 3 1/8″  Finish: food safe flaxseed oil

photo - outside of raw logThis bowl comes from the other half of the log that bowl #1 was found in. As David Fisher advises, this split remained in a plastic bag to retain moisture during the few weeks I worked on the first bowl.

The split piece weighed just over 22 pounds as I started work.  The completed bowl weighs 1.6 pounds.

About 90% of the waste is hacked away in about 10% of the total bowl caving time.  The remaining 10% takes the other 90% of the time. The first part, with axe and adze is the most fun with big chips flying.  As the shape is refined the chips get smaller and smaller and when the carving needs to be more careful.

This time, I took more “process” pictures along the way:

Eva stopped by the shop a few times to take some videos.

Bowl #1

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Silver Maple. Length: 15 1/4″  Width: 5 5/8″  Height: 2 3/4″  Finish: food safe flaxseed oil.

photo - split logA neighbor is removing some maple trees that are too close to his house for comfort.  This bowl is from the first log I carried away, originally a primary branch about 8″ in diameter and 20″ long. Thanks, Gerry, for the logs.

Every project is a learning experience.  I have to thank David Fisher’s video series of bowl carving instruction on the Fine Woodworking site for his teaching.

Since it was a first project, I was timid about taking photos of the process.  It could have easily ended up as firewood, and why waste the pixels on that?  Oh, I forgot: pixels don’t cost nearly as much as film used to.  🙂

Lesson:  David Fisher advises that the pith should always be removed.  His reasoning is to avoid splitting and checking problems due to the pith moving at a different rate than surrounding fiber.  In this case, I had to flatten the bottom numerous times as the pith was squeezed and bulged out.  It’s still not absolutely flat, but in no danger of toppling over.