# Help with Live Edge Bowl turning



## wombosi (Oct 23, 2010)

Hi Guys,
I've done a lot of spindle turning but want to start turning some bowls and specifically a live edge one. 

Bunch of questions:

1) Can I just go out into the woods and look for a fallen down Cherry, Maple, Birch tree, etc...? Do I need to wait for winter or the bark will fall off?

2) Do I turn it to final thickness in one session? 

3) If so, do I then finish sand it and finish it?

4) Should it be put into a bag with shavings for several weeks?

5) How is the live edge treated? Should it be soaked in CA glue or only spot touched where checking begins?

6) What's the best way to finish something like this?

Thanks a lot!


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## WillemJM (Aug 18, 2011)

You can turn it to final shape wet, at experienced level, very thin, uniform thickness and let nature shape it as it dries, or easier turn the blank, protect it from cracking and let it dry before final turning and finishing.

If you turn it to final shape, you will finish it after drying, the shape will change somewhat.

You can protect the live edge with CA glue or epoxy.

Here are pictures of a two stage Holly bowl.










The areas prone to cracking, being end grain is sealed with Anchorseal and it gets weighed every week. Over a month it lost about 350 grams of water, I had it in a double grocery paper bag for the first two weeks.










The weight is written down every week, once it stops losing weight, the bottom tenon is rounded and final turning and finishing takes place.


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## wombosi (Oct 23, 2010)

Thanks Willem.
At what point do you apply the CA glue?
Does the bowl check in the paper bags? Do you tend to the cracks with CA as well?


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## NCPaladin (Aug 7, 2010)

JMHO but I would start with a few “standard” bowls to get some practice using a bowl gouge. Cuts are different from spindle work but in most cases you still need to rub the bevel. You will also be turning interrupted cuts which are more difficult.
1. You may be able to just find some in the woods but be very leery of inherent cracks.
Since the sap has fallen, trees cut in the winter tend to hold their bark better than those cut in spring/summer. If it has fallen you probably don’t know when it died. You can pry at the bark and see how well it holds.
2. You can turn it to final thickness in one session but again (IMHO) it must be turned thin which is advanced turning also. I would turn to the standard 10% thickness and then allow drying and re-turning to final thickness.
3. Sand and finish when dry no matter what the method (1 turning or 2).
4. Some do put shavings in the bag, I don’t and it hasn’t caused a problem. Up to you.
5. Sometime I leave the bark on, sometimes not. If leaving on, CA certainly helps. When applying, turn the bark side down so any drips runs onto the bark and not the wood. CA will stain most wood and you may not be able to sand it out.
You can have a natural edged and not have the bark. I have applied black gesso to a non-bark natural edge and really liked it.
6. Your choice. I like oil like Danish and a low luster. Some like a high gloss but to me it looks out of place with a natural edge.


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

I've only turned live-edge bowls from green wood, turning to completion in a single shot. To date, I've used cherry (my favourite) and birch (I think it was silver birch, but not sure.)

The birch was felled in winter (the power company took it down because it was overhanging power lines and a storm was expected), but I don't know when the cherry was cut. Theory says that bark is less likely to separate at the cambium layer if it was cut in winter.

The way I did it was to turn completely apart from leaving the foot a little wider and thicker than I want it. Then let it dry for a while, expecting it to distort. When I reckon it's finished moving, put it back on the lathe to finish the foot (i.e. level it, create a slight recess so it sits on its rim, etc.)

Then I sand it and give it a few coats of spray-on dewaxed shellac (a.k.a. sanding sealer) give it a final sanding and put on whatever finish I feel like using that day - water based polyacrylate worked nicely on the cherry.

I use CA glue as I'm turning if I see a crack beginning to develop or see the bark beginning to separate. With pale woods (like silver birch) CA can leave a visible stain, a quick spritz with dewaxed shellac first can seal the surface so the CA doesn't soak into the surrounding wood which keeps it cleaner.

HTH

_edit ... attached a couple of snaps ...

_


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

Here's a natural edge ash bowl I did a while ago. It was fun to do. I didn't do anything to prepare it. I was lucky it has stayed like it has with the bark on.


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

Good advice so far. By thin we usually mean 1/2" or less. At 1/2" you will need to dry it slowly. I mine in a box or cabinet for the first 5 days or so. Putting shavings in the box only helps grow mold. It might help slow down the drying but so does putting it in a place with little air movement such as a cabinet or box and you don't have as much mold problem.
If you turn it 3/8" or less you have less chance of cracking and of course it dries faster. 
Use bevel rubbing tools such a s bowl gouge that is sharp. Let the tool do the cutting, don't force it to cut. This will just chip off the bark. Also scrapers are not good for natural edge bowls for the same reason.
I turn mine quite thin usually so I turn the bowl an inch a a time to final thickness and never, I mean never go back. The wood moves very slightly and if you try to go back over an area that is previously thinned it can be disaster. Now I've done it of course and gotten by with it but it's risky.
Sometimes you just can't keep the bark on or it simply may fall off as it's drying. Ive been playing with creating my own bark using sponge painting technique. On the larger of the 2 bowls I built up fake bark with thickned epoxy and then painted that. Still in the experimental stages on these.


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## wombosi (Oct 23, 2010)

Guys, many thanks for all the great advice. And some nice looking bowls!
A few more questions:

If sanding and finishing are done after the piece dries, and assuming the bowl has distorted, how is it remounted on the lathe? Chuck grabs the out of round tenon? And then a jamb chuck to finish the foot? But how does a jamb chuck work in a now oblong bowl with a very fragile edge?


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

wombosi said:


> If sanding and finishing are done after the piece dries, and assuming the bowl has distorted, how is it remounted on the lathe? Chuck grabs the out of round tenon? And then a jamb chuck to finish the foot? But how does a jamb chuck work in a now oblong bowl with a very fragile edge?


Good questions!

Although I sometimes grab the (distorted) tenon in the chuck, I just use it to hold the bowl steady so I can sand the inside using a sanding disk (I got mine from Woodcraft) in a cordless drill, and turn the lathe shaft by hand to work all round the inside.

Then to turn it around, I use a friction chuck -- not a jam chuck, as you point out, there's no edge to jam anyplace.

Mine is just a lump of pine 4 x 4 that I screwed to a faceplate and rounded off the nose end. I use double sided tape to hold a piece of closed-cell foam (computer packing material) to the end, then put the bowl over it and bring the tailstock up with it's point in the center of the foot.

Turn by hand a couple of times, reposition as needed, then tighten up the tailstock till it grips well (but careful -- not so tight it splits the wood, DAMHIKT)

Again, I sand the outside without powering the lathe -- just turn it by hand till I've got the whole thing done.

I work the foot as close to the point of the live center as I can. Eventually I simply stop, take it off the lathe, and trim away a narrow stub with a chisel or flush-trim saw.


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## wombosi (Oct 23, 2010)

Thanks a lot guys. I feel much closer to being able to do this well.

I see some really nice looking small burls on ebay that look like they would make nice live edge bowls. The seller says they were cut down in the Spring, though. Is this something to be leery of?

The ad says they are dry. Not sure if that means KD or air dried.

Thanks again.


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

wombosi said:


> The seller says they were cut down in the Spring, though. Is this something to be leery of?
> 
> The ad says they are dry. Not sure if that means KD or air dried.


Leery? No, I don't think so. If the bark is going to separate, it will separate -- and that's true if it was cut in winter or spring, the odds may shift a little but they are still just percentage probabilities not certainties.

OTOH, I would start with a cheap (meaning free) piece of wood, not something I paid real money for. It makes it much easier to have fun if you don't have a lot invested in the outcome :laughing:


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## wombosi (Oct 23, 2010)

duncsuss said:


> Leery? No, I don't think so. If the bark is going to separate, it will separate -- and that's true if it was cut in winter or spring, the odds may shift a little but they are still just percentage probabilities not certainties.
> 
> OTOH, I would start with a cheap (meaning free) piece of wood, not something I paid real money for. It makes it much easier to have fun if you don't have a lot invested in the outcome :laughing:


yeah, i think you've got a point. it doesn't feel quite right in general to have to be buying air dried bowl blanks, when i'm surrounded by forest. then again, it doesn't sound like burls are that easy to come by.
also, i'd hate to invest at least a few hours into something that's just for practice. if it's a nice enough piece of wood to make into a keeper bowl, then it's nice enough to make into a keeper bowl.

are you advocating a piece of firewood just to get the technique down? i'm done lidded boxes and lots of spindle turning...

thanks.


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## duncsuss (Aug 21, 2009)

wombosi said:


> are you advocating a piece of firewood just to get the technique down? i'm done lidded boxes and lots of spindle turning...


Pretty much :yes:

The real difference is that there's a lot of "intermittent" cutting when you're doing live-edge pieces, just like when you're knocking the corners off a square billet to make it round.

This happens on both the outside AND the inside of the bowl (till you get down past the "low point" of the edge). Take the cuts very slowly, don't jab the gouge into the air gap because when the wood comes back around it will let you know.

And do please make sure you're not trying to do this with a spindle roughing gouge, use a bowl gouge.


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