Live oak bowl

179
20
A friend gave me some live oak a while back, and while I’ve use smaller pieces for a few things, I had a fairly large chunk that I figured would make a bowl. It had bark inclusions and a few checks, and was generally pretty gnarly, but I mixed up some epoxy and red dye (too much red dye, based on the finished result) and filled and solidified the fragile bits, then turned this bowl.

I’m fairly pleased with the result. I intentionally left a live edge on the bowl, and I think it adds something. My sweetie is less sure about that, pointing out how the bowl would be no good for soup.

Thanks for the wood swap, Nathan! This was a fun one to work.

May you have the day you deserve!

20 Comments

i like it. imperfection make things so much more interesting. 

working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.

A fine one Dave 👍

The live edges for bowls really look great, a smooth surface directly transitioning to the rough.

One could turn a bowl from some grainless maple, soup yes, style no!
The best are with woods that have interest. 
I am glad you had fun with it.  Live oak is one of my favorites to turn -- the more gnarly the better.  Without the inclusions LO can be a little boring.   Those boring pieces I save for mallets and handles.  Really hard but turns beautifully.   My favorite infill with LO is brass and epoxy.  

--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.

Nice bowl!
There's a guy at a different website that says " If it can't hold soup, it's art".

You can have my girl but don't touch my hat! Lyle Lovett

Beautiful!

Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".

Love the bowl.   

Ron

This is a really great looking bowl Dave. As mentioned prior above, live edge, checks, and inclusions make the bowl very appealing. If these attributes didn't give character to the piece, all those YT woodworkers making and selling natural edge tables would be barking up the wrong tree. From what I've seen, they seem to know what they're doing.
Use this bowl for dry goods, nuts, pretzels, chocolates, etc. This is a great creation, two thumbs up.
Nice!  The bowl has great features.
Thanks, all. Special thanks to Nathan for the interesting piece of wood that made it possible. The grain in there is pretty cool. 

May you have the day you deserve!

Looks great Dave! It will hold chips or nuts quite well!
Nice bowl, Dave!!!

Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day

Thanks!

May you have the day you deserve!

Nice bowl Dave. The live edge makes it look more organic.  As for soup, just tell her not to fill it up so full.  You can always get seconds.

I'm working my way towards trying to turn a bowl.  My mother asked for a yarn bowl for Christmas.  Probably won't make it by then, but maybe by her birthday in September.  I'm still trying to master turning handles for chisels,  screwdrivers and all the Rockler kitchen utensil kits.
Sounds good, Earl. Bowls are a different thing from spindle turning, but practice is still practice. 

May you have the day you deserve!

Just don't uses most spindle turning tools to turn bowls.  If the tool is made with a flat tang, it is not safe to use when turning bowls.  Spindle gouges that are made from round stock are OK but most roughing gouges and so called continental spindle gouges that are forged from flat stock can fail in a bad catches when turning bowls or any blanks where the end grain is not on the spindle and tail stock.  While you should not use a skew turning bowls, you can use it laying flat on the tool rest like a negative rake scraper without issue.    Green wood is best when learning to turn bowls.  If you can find a piece of green Bradford pear, it is one of the best for learning as are any of the fruit tree woods.  

--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.

I like it Dave.  Soup or no, sometimes the wood just needs to be what it is!
The one other exception to Nathan’s good point is that I’ll use the toe of a skew to incise a narrow line on a bowl, like my little lidded maple bowl which has four lines running around it. And that’s my skew with square corners, so it doesn’t roll on the rest and possibly catch and make a spiral around the bowl.

Thanks, Kenny!

May you have the day you deserve!

A nice bowl out of a difficult piece of wood.

https://dutchypatterns.com/

Thanks, Jan!

May you have the day you deserve!