I have made many bowls and other items using Maple of one figure or another, and I have covered the wood in detail in this previous post.
It seems like I have made a fair number of things from bird’s eye maple here lately and this is yet another one. I had a block of 4 3/4″ by 1″ bird’s eye maple that I originally thought I would cut up for pen blanks, but the more I looked at it the more I wanted to see how small of a dish I could make by keeping the block of bird’s eye maple whole instead of cut up for pen blanks. You know it is small given the starting dimensions, so I don’t think I can really call it a bowl, maybe a dish, maybe more of a coaster. Whatever you call it, it turned out nicely.
Small Bird’s Eye Maple Dish Interior
The finished dimensions are 4 5/8″ x 1″, so there was very little loss, which helps when starting out so small. I’ve making lots of little stuff lately and that is because when I was setting up my new shop, well, I ran out of room for wood, so I took what was left and piled it up next to the workbench as the working pile of woods that I would turn next. I’m slowly, about every other day if I stay on schedule, turning those pieces into bowls and dishes. There are some unknown species pieces in there as well as the known one like this bird’s eye maple.
Maple in particular is special to me. When Dad first taught me to turn wood, the very first bowl/dish, sort of, was made from maple, so it always takes me back to the beginning to work with it.
Birds Eye Maple Dish Reverse
Given how small it is this dish didn’t take long to make. I cut it to round from the square blank, mounted it on my Robust American Beauty lathe, and rounded it. I cut the divot in the back for the Nova Chuck that would hold it for hollowing. All cuts were made using different sizes and cutter types of my Easy Wood Tools. Final sanding was done with Green Wave paper from Packard Woodworks, and I used my go-to very favorite finish, ShellaWax.
This was a fun, quick, and easy project that makes use of a nice piece of bird’s eye maple. Next up in more Cucumbertree wood.