In late November, 2019, I set up my new S1000 (3 Hp) Stubby lathe. I got this lathe so I could turn larger bowls. I turned the first large bowl on this lathe in early December (see the December 12, 2019, blog post). The bowl was turned from a very large aspen burl that was 2 ft in diameter and weighed around 90 lbs. The rough turned bowl is now dry, so I sanded and finished it a few days ago. It took two days of sanding and re-turning the bottom, another several days of oili

Everyone is stuck at home these days so there is a bit more time to write. I alternate my time between working in my shop turning and finishing bowls and writing and posting on this web site. I can't work in the shop every day since it is too hard on my aging body. There is also lots to do around the house and eventually around the yard (we still have snow in the yard). Yesterday I sanded and oiled another aspen burl bowl, and this is the subject of this post. If you follow m

It is challenging to avoid the stress and anxiety of the isolation that distancing brings during the Corona virus pandemic. My cure is to spend a lot of time in the wood turning shop. My inventory will build, so hopefully the day will come when people buy art again. I have a lot of aspen burl bowls ready for finishing (sanding/oiling/waxing). Aspen burl are my favorite bowls mainly because their colors and grain figuring are always spectacularly amazing, unlike any other burl

A local logger brought me a beautiful birch burl a few weeks ago. I paid him well for it. It is good to help people in our rural community since many are struggling with the Corona virus shutting down work. The burl is about 24" long and 16" wide at its maximum, a perfect size. Here are a few photos of the burl. The burl wraps nearly all the way around the 8" diameter log so I decided to cut it in half along the blue line (in the second image). This gave two halves that hopef