Wood turning bowls seem to be a simple thing, After all, people have done it since the beginning of time. The first lathes appear to have been someone sticking a log between two points of wood or rack, wrapping a rope around the log and pulling it back and forth while someone else cut the inside and out with a sharp rock. In fact the same technique has been observed in India and certain primitive areas although most use tools made of scavenged steel now. While our tools are somewhat more sophisticated now we still turn a bowl that needs to hold water or salad or what have you. Some things do not change.
Many people are drawn to wood turning through the idea of making a bowl. Some of us start new turners on bowl turning instead of spindles. Peter Childs, a famous English wood turner, considered the bowl to be the perfect learning tool for a wood turner. It taught the proper way to hold a tool, to hold one's body, and to approach and cut the wood. It still does.
Even for people who start turning by making spindles and doing lots of exercises by cutting beads and coves in scrap wood, a bowl is often the first thing they finish that is a practical turning and one to show others. Little do they know that the journey is just beginning.
Turning wood bowls is the sort of thing that beginners do easily and advanced turners have difficulty completing. There are simply too many design choices. At first it is simply a matter of putting a block of wood on the lathe and getting a bowl at the end. All the concentration goes into cutting form and seeing the shavings fly. There is a mystery with the wood itself that must be handled.
In order to turn a bowl you need a big enough piece of wood. Unfortunately, wood this size has usually cracked in the drying so a turner needs to start with wet or "green" wood. This wood will warp as it dries so a wood turner quickly learns patience. First the bowl is roughed from green wood and allowed to warp as it dries. Once dried it is remounted on the lathe and finish turned, sanded and a wood finish applied. So our beginner has a lot of very enjoyable learning to do.
Then comes the day that things change. A bowl blank is removed from the drying pile and mounted to the lathe. Fairly quickly it is returned to round and brought to final thickness. The surface is sanded and a finish is applied. It has become a bowl but without all the difficulty of before. Our turner is well along the learning curve.
Now the question becomes not "is it a bowl?" but "is it a good bowl?" That leads to considerations of what makes a good bowl. How thick should the sides be given a certain size and does that change with color and weight of wood? Is the side of a pleasing curve and will it still look pleasing when gazed at from above as well as below?
These and other questions are the kind that will keep the search interesting for the perfect form in an old style vessel. Wood turning bowls can be a lifetime search.
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