Today’s bowls are Bird Peck Hickory and Cherry, both of which I have worked with before.
Hickory can be quite plain but today’s bowl shows a heavy figure known as “bird peck” although it has nothing to do with birds pecking at the tree. In fact, no one really knows what causes these types of figure but it is always a fortunate find to discover figure such as this when a tree is processed. Heavy figure of this type, including in Hickory, greatly increases the value of the timber. Also note that Hickory is HARD. In fact, it is the 6th hardest of the North American woods.
Bird Peck Hickory 7 x 2.5
Cherry has long been one of my favorite woods with which to work. It has a beautiful color, cuts well although it requires a good bit of concentrated sanding on the cross grain areas, and it also has a slight but pleasantly distinctive scent. This piece is rather plain but even plain Cherry is still lovely.
Cherry 7 x 2.5
All major cuts were made using the Easy Wood Tool system on my Robust American Beauty lathe, although I do use Robert Sorby bowl gouges for light final passes before sanding. Forward chucking was in a Nova Chuck, while reverse chucking was done using a Nova Chuck with Cole Jaws. Sanding was with Gold and Green Wave sanding discs from Packard Woodworks. Final finish is Shellawax.
As always, I wish all my readers a great experience in whatever your wood working interests happen to be and to those who like working with lathes especially, do a good turn today!