I’ve worked with Manzanita several times now and it remains an interesting material.
Manzanita is very hard and the only pieces that are generally large enough to work into a bowl are root and burl pieces. This piece is a burl, but unlike on other occasions, I didn’t find any rocks or other debris hidden inside as I turned it.
This piece has several flame figures in the bottom of the bowl, not uncommon features of burl wood.
Manzanita
The irregular shape of burls and the many voids can make them challenging to work with but they also often yield stunningly beautiful and unique pieces which makes it worthwhile to continue working with them.
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!