Pecan Bowls

A friend of mine collected a large pecan log for me several months ago.  I decided to turn a couple of bowls.  I processed the first chunk from the  log to make bowl blanks back in April and I rough turned a couple of bowl at the time.  I started with these two blanks to rough turn. 

The tree had just been cut down so the moisture content was over 50% according to my meter and water was dripping from my bowl gouge and spraying my face shield so much that I had to constantly stop to wipe it off.  As soon as I got a rough shape, I knew that these were going to look pretty nice.  They went into a paper bag with wet shavings to dry for a couple of months and then on the shelf for further drying.  I weighed them before they went into the bag and again this week and they had lost a third of their weight so I figured it might be time to finish them.  I ran them each through a couple of short microwave cycles to make sure that they didn't lose much more moisture and decided to proceed.  The first rough turned bowl warped significantly and was over an inch longer with the grain than across it so the first step was make the mounting recess for the chuck round again.

After getting it mounted on the chuck then I had to round it inside and  out.  That was a little harrowing but went okay.  The grain started to show again.

The smaller bowl had some worm holes and some cracks that I filled with turquoise and CA. 
Both are sanded to 320 grit and then polished and finished with Ack's sanding paste and finishing wax.  After finishing the turquoise bowl.  I decided it was time to celebrate with a cold one.