Round and Round we go!

I am sure you have imagined we continue to process of making corners rounded. 

Just like before, the vertical cuts are made to make the excess wood easier to remove without the chance of it cracking or splitting off in unwanted ways.

This is the blank after the second corner.

As the excess is cut away, the grain and color patterns begin to appear.

The third corner is trimmed up.

The Fourth Corner is exactly the same process.  Once the rough circle has taken shape, we have to take it to the lathe for mounting and final rounding out.  More in the next post! 

From Block to Bowl

Or from square peg to round holder

I thought it would be nice to include you all in "the process".  Of course, wood starts out as a tree.  We're not going back that far.  We have an awesome source for turning blanks (fancy phrase for blocks of wood).  If you are in the market for blanks Gary at NC Woods is the best.  Great guy, great wood.  The website is http://www.ncwood.biz/.  They also have an ebay store.  I can recommend them without hesitation.  And no, I'm not shilling for them.

So, your blank starts out life as a block of wood.  In this case it is an Ambrosia Maple (Ambrosia explaination in previous posts) Maple, a nice tree.

Am = Ambrosia Green= lots of water

Curly = pattern in the grain possibly curly

The blank is marked with a circle to provide a guide for getting the edges off.  We then use the band saw to saw into the wood on the horizontal plane.  Cutting off the corners could be tricky.  The wood has the potential of cracking and splitting in unwanted places.  Thus resulting in sad faces.  Sure one could think that it would be nice to smoke meat on the grill with a nice maple, but well we fall in love with each piece as it takes shape. 

More tomorrow.  It is too much fun for one day :)  Thanks for checking in.  I would love to hear from you.