A small carved bowl made from Gambel Oak, from near Taos, NM.
This was such a small chunk of wood (Gambel Oaks don’t grow very large, typically 1-2m tall around here) that rather than turn it round, I decided to carve an oblong bowl. It’s about 3 inches across, and 5 inches long. It'll hold two eggs. Just.
When my sweetie and I are talking about a collection of things, we’ll often refer to it as stuff and things to emphasize that it’s not just stuff. So when I looked at the flats at the ends of the bowl wondering what to carve there, stuff and things came to mind.
Fun to switch it up from time to time with a little carving. How hard is that Gambel oak to carve?
Mike Peace had an interesting YouTube video on turning oblong pieces that you might find useful for future reference. It is a great way to utilize (turn) chunks that might otherwise go into the burn pile.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
It’s about as hard to carve as any other oak, Nathan. When green, not bad at all. When dried, pretty dang hard. Nice thing about this is that the earlywood/latewood density differences are small (no real wet season) so it’s at least relatively uniform carving.
Interesting little bowl, nice carving work. The interior of the bowl is very smooth so I'm assuming this involved a lot of sanding was involved, did it sand easily?
Not much sanding, really. Careful knife and gouge work. With the hard oak, it’s easy to take light cuts. And then in a few spots where I couldn’t get a good knife angle to avoid tearout, I sanded a bit. Went pretty easily, but I used new paper and started with 60 grit. I’d say about the same as white oak.
I like the wood, but the shape is a reminder of an antique (mid 1800's) bedpan I once saw. It too was hand carved. I suppose things and stuff might be appropriate words. :-)
Thanks! Me too, Mike. I have a little carvers vise that held it for much of the work so my fingers weren’t ever really in danger. Thought about digging out the bowl horse, but it’s just as well I didn’t. Weather got more wintry around here again, so I’d have been hauling that back and forth a bunch.
