Before Christmas I got a call from one of my arborist friends, telling me he had a cherry tree for me. The tree had been in poor health for a couple of years and this past summer, it failed to produce any leaves on 3/4 of the branches. Time for it to come down before it came down on top of the house or cars.
It took me two trips with my minivan to pick up what was available to me (the homeowner wanted some of it but I got to pick what I wanted) but it was soooo worth it. Basically I took everything that was over 12" in diameter. The result, a whole pile of bowls! This picture shows MOST of what I got from it. What you see are some bowls in the 13"-15" diameter range which I know will sell very well for me. The cool thing is all of the 10"-12" bowls which I was able to save from the middle of the big ones. THIS is why I love my coring tools. Without it, all of the medium and small bowls would have ended up as wood shavings on the floor.
I have heard some woodturners say that they do not use a bowl coring system because they have more wood than they can handle and this is such an ignorant view. We are stewards of this planet. To waste such precious material that took decades to grow is blatantly disrespectful to the tree, the people and the Earth itself. Now, if a woodturner does not make bowls or only smaller bowls (under 10"), I can forgive this approach. When I hear of woodturners who make large bowls and do not utilize as much of the log as possible, I just shake my head in disbelief.
If you are considering buying a wooden bowl for yourself or as a gift for someone, I urge you to talk to the maker. Learn about their practices, be it where the wood comes from or the makers consideration for the environment. There are plenty of makers like myself who use reclaimed, local woods and take care to use as much of the wood as possible. Seriously consider the offerings of these makers over those that would waste what they need not waste.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Excellent, Steve! I like your approach and I never knew you could save the inside other than shavings... Thanks for educating me - and keep up the great work, love the bowls you create.
ReplyDeleteThanks Alicia. It just feels like the right way to approach this work, sourcing local woods and reclaiming them and saving as much of it as I can...it just makes sense.
ReplyDeleteHere is an article I posted back in 2009 about how I get the middle of the bowl out so it is useable. The exact tool I use has changed but the principle is the same. Have a gander... www.greenleafwoodstudio.blogspot.com/2009/11/roughing-out-and-coring.html
Steve, I looked at the article you listed above. I am not even sure the Woodcut Bowl Saver is still available and if so, available in the U.S... If you had it to do over again, would you get that system again or would you go with another? That one looks a Lot like the OneWay system to me. What are your feelings on the McNaughton system? About ready to fork over the $ for one or the other, but don't want to do it twice, want the right one to start with. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteRichard
Hey Richard,
ReplyDeleteYup, when I wrote that post I was using the WoodCut Bowl Saver and in a few ways, I wish I still was. It is still available through Packard Woodworks in the US and I believe KMS Tools can order it in Canada.
You've asked some good questions and instead of trying to cram everything into this response, I wrote a whole new post about the 3 bowl coring systems out there. I think I have sufficient experience with all 3 to make some decent observations. I posted them at http://greenleafwoodstudio.blogspot.com/2012/02/comparing-bowl-coring-systems.html
Hope that helps. If you have any other questions or concerns, fire away!
cheers