Chinese Elm

 One of my neighbors lost a Chinese Elm about 6 months ago.  It just died suddenly.  It wasn't particularly large and Chinese Elm isn't particularly interesting but I grabbed a few pieces when I helped him cut it down and section it up.  He came over the other night and we did a small bowl from his tree

He'd never done any turning before but his father had at some point during his school years.  We decided to do a very basic thin walled bowl.  He did most of the roughing to get it into shape and I took over for the finer work and the last pass.  We didn't bother to sand as the bowl is still fairly wet and was just a practice piece.

It could have been a bit thinner in the bottom but is pretty good on the sides.  Thin enough to transmit light even though it's about half dry.  It was moving quite a bit as I was finishing the bottom.  Another reason we didn't bother to sand.

This hollow form is also from their tree.  I've been working on it off and on for a week or 2 and finally have it mostly done. 

I still have to take off the bottom as well as sand and finish the piece.  Before that I have to figure out exactly where the bottom of the piece is.  With an irregular edge at the top it's difficult to know exactly where the bottom of the inside is in relation to the outside.  I'll probably build a jig that uses a laser, something I've intended to do for quite a while.

Catch up

 A bit of catch up and picture dump tonight.  This is going to be a long entry with limited notes.

This blank is Chinese Elm from my neighbor's tree.  It died last fall and had to come down last week.  This is the top part of the trunk, it split into 4 branches at this point.

 Alternate view.

I only took it as far as shaping the outside.  It's been coated with Anchorseal and set aside for the time being.

Alternate view.  The shape will be refined as work progresses.

Ahead of my Tucson demo I decided to do a little practice turning.

A simple spindle turned on 2 parallel axis.  This gives a pinched oval shape to the piece.

Next was another parallel 2 axis piece.  All 3 sections have a circular cross section, only the center section is offset.

Saturday was my demo for the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association in Tucson.  This was my first visit to this club and I did my multi axis demo.  Over the course of 2 1/2 hours I did 6 multi axis projects.  2 parallel axis spindles to warm up, a Mark St. Leger style multi axis final jig, a 3 sided lidded box with a twist, and finally a pair of multi axis pendants.

While there we stopped into the local Woodcraft, my only purchase was a Woodriver brand Stebcenter.  I've been playing with it for the last couple of day and I really like it so far and at $20 it's a bargain.

Sunday morning started with a small Olive hollow form. Approx. 3 1/4" X 2 1/2".

Top view.

Profile view.

That got me thinking, how fast could I turn a similar piece, start to finish.  I started at exactly  2:00

 At 2:10 I heard a somewhat familiar noise and stopped the lathe to find that I had cut through the sidewall near the bottom as I was shaping the outside.  I needed about 2 more minutes to finish shaping the outside and give it a quick sanding.

 Finished off the bottom but not yet sanded, no point sanding it at this time.

I wanted to check how I did inside, a little rough but pretty consistent down to the point where the inside gets bigger than the outside.  I could have gone a little deeper in the middle but a little more meat in the bottom isn't a bad thing as it helps keep it upright.

More tomorrow.