WOOD CARVING
Offering bowls
A number of finished and semi finished offering bowls.
Offering bowls are created for two handed display or offering and are wonderful for center place display of food or art.
Over several years of trial I have developed a style and technique that suits my needs and the material at hand, massive pieces of solid wood!
This is a view of a cut of a cottonwood or popular log, and a semi finished bowl of the same cut. All green wood. I have the best luck, rough shaping the bowl and then letting it dry out over the winter. By the next winter it is dry enough to finish shaping and then surface finish. Linseed oil is a good sealer to slow the drying so the warpage and cracking is reduced. On the right is a dry semi finished bowel of Oak and my shadow!
A bowl of this size takes me about 50 hours to complete.
This is the back or reversed view of the same pieces. I try to create the bowl as dictated by the log piece rather then try to find a suitable piece of wood to create a preconceived bowl. These bowls were created from a clean straight cut of wood. Generally I take cuts from the stump or a large branching crouch. The more gnarled the grain the better. If it is a piece that you don’t want to have to split and too large for the stove it is perfect for working into a display bowl using my technique. More later as I get better at my posting and my photography. 8-) pg
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Man this post took me over 3hours to complete. I need to improve my grasp of this wordpress stuff. At least I think I have the picture and type system figured out. Grumble Grumble gr gr gr ;-I pg
Nice pictures. I am no woodworker but wonder about the method to carve symmetrical pieces like your bowls. A round one is pretty easy with a lathe but oblong? Dumb question…but could you is a wooden dutch oven possible? For use in a lower temp oven not over open flame of course. Seems like you could get some fancy flavored roasts using apple or cherry wood that way.
@Ralph B December 20, 2011 at 9:42 pm
interesting question about cooking in a wooden bowel. Many woods can impart flavors to their contents, specially when heated. Wood can tolerate heat up to 250F without much damage depending on species. Our ancestors cooked in wooden bowels by heating stones in the fire and then using the heated stones to heat the food in the bowel such as stew and soup. Cherry wood tastes of cherry!
I am not sure I would want to cook in one of my bowels as they take 20 to 30 hours to rough carve and as many more to finish. They would generally be used for serving prepared food or display.
I hope to do a page on my technique now that I have every thing ready to do a layout. pg
Very much looking forward to more on your woodworking (et al). You have a very keen and curious mind and very good hands, don’t get the impression that you’re into TV –not that there’s anything to watch even if you were. Best again!
@ Pascvaks; Ah yes! The boob tube. We have Direct, over 900 channels, generally nothing worth watching. ;-(
pg
I generally have it on Fox business news when I am inside. Got to keep abreast of the world. The web is a great help, specially The Chief Information Officer’s blog.
Well, I just bought two new electric sanders. A 5 inch orbital and a 2 inch detail sander. Lots of wood to sand tomorrow. New toys to play with! And I also need to return to work on the FRP disk as I got more resin to do the needed detail and finish work. pg
@P.G: That FRP disk….a surfing board to surf the skies!
Reply; Adolfo I moved you to the physics thread where I will continue.