Scrap Wood Bowl

                                

  A couple of blogs ago I showed those photos of construction lumber that is going on the roof of our seniors centre in Ancaster.

  This is what the wood in the right hand photograph turned into:

  The bowl is not flawless, the wood was a bit chippy and so there are a couple of places that are only 95% good, not the 100% for which we all strive.  By the time the finish was applied the bowl is smooth but there are a couple of character marks that are visible.

   I used a dead easy finish on the bowl today.

  I sanded the bowl to 000 steel wool and the put three thick coats of paste wax on the bowl and polished it with a cotton cloth.  I do like waxing on the lathe, all you do is stand there are think smooth thoughts.

   The set up on the lathe was one that I haven't used before.

  This worked well enough that I am planning to keep this additional face plate.  I will put it on my lathe and square it off so that it will spin a little more smoothly the next time I use it.  I picked a backing plate this size, 'cause that is what was available in the scrap box.  I recently dropped off five boxes of off cuts at a friends place where they end up in his fire place. So amazingly I didn't have a tonne of scraps of wood available this time.

   Working on a wood lathe is a seriously messy business but the wood chips are not as big a problem as the very fine dust that the sanding process creates.   
For  this particular project I had a perfect dust collection set up so there was nearly no fine saw dust.

  By laying the business end of my  dust collector on the off side of the bowl I captured nearly all the dust.   That trick will make all my lathe work easier.  I don't mind the big stuff I just wade through it and track it around the house, but I hate getting my nose full of dust. ( I also hate dust masks, my glasses fog up if I wear a dust mask for long).

  The wood has character, and is not too tough to work with, and it is free.  Free is good.

cheers,