Greetings from the mulch factory
A few pictures of the process of going from log chunks to roughed-out bowls.
I spent an afternoon with the chainsaw and the bandsaw prepping some of the logs that have been waiting for attention. I cut the logs in half lengthwise, then take those quonset-hut-shaped pieces to the bandsaw and cut them into rounds. Those rounded pieces, or blanks, are what you see stacked here.
After a busy day of roughing it gets to the point where I can’t see my ankles anymore and I feel like I’m always working uphill. I finally broke down and bought a grain scoop, basically a lightweight but commodious plastic shovel, because bending down to get all this stuff with a dustpan was getting to be a real pain. It makes cleanup a lot faster.
What do you know? Another giant mess! Hooray! But now I’ve got 24 bowls roughed out, ready for sealing and drying. How long they dry depends on the density of the wood and the thickness of the roughed bowl’s walls. Some woods, like oak, deform a LOT while they’re drying, so I need to leave those walls a bit thicker to make sure I’ll be able to get a round bowl out of it at the end of the process. Other woods, like golden rain, don’t change much at all during drying, so I can thin the walls down more in the roughing stage.
It’s satisfying to see them all piled up. This is a mix of oak (possibly pin oak, but I’m still trying to track that info down) from one of my turning friends (Hi Mark!), alder from a neighbor’s tree, apple from another friend and a little piece of spectacularly figured walnut salvaged from the mountain of scrap at Calico Hardwoods in Santa Rosa. Because I was able to core one of the blanks, I ended up with 25 roughed-out bowls (and 3 humongus bags of shavings), even though I had to discard several of my log chunks due to insect damage and cracks.
The last step before I put these to bed for a few months or a year is to slather some greenwood sealer on them. The stuff I use is from Woodcraft, a liquid wax emulsion that dries to a soft, water-resistant coating. It helps slow the water loss and keep the wood from stressing and cracking as it dries. If you look closely, you’ll see that I’ve only sealed the end grain areas, which is where the wood loses most of its moisture.