I figured about a month ago after viewing Greg Ketell's Start to finish thread that I would do a Manzanita burl bowl start to finish, as a rite of passage, so to speak. So lets get started...
First the wood gloat, these showed up at my door, 4 large Manzanita burls havested after the wildfires in California. You can see some of them are a bit charred on the outside. This is the small one at the middle/top of the photo. (The square is a 16", for a size reference on the large burl)
Now I neglected to take a photo of the whole burl on the lathe, I will admit it was quite a harrowing experience roughing it out, inspite of the fact that it was nearly round. I don't think the lathe made it over 320 rpms, it was SLOW going.
So the outside is done, I tend to like to finish things as I go (not a final finish, but a good basis for one)
You can almost make it out in that photo but there is a void, in the center of the tenon, so it got filled with epoxy, flipped around and taped up, (some major cracks in this burl) Lots of blue painters tape, followed by tons of duct tape, nice and tight!
Now I proceeded to hollow out the inside, what an experience this was, about halfway down in the very center of the burl there was a fist sized rotten area. It was partially a void and partially super punky wood. I took a nice beating from it, made me sore for a couple of days. In my haste I didn't photograph the void. I was mostly concened that it traveled all the way through to where the tenon was.
I also decided at this time that I wanted to leave the walls fairly thick, I have begun to appreciate the feel of bowls that have some substance to them. It's a perception thing that I had discussed with an artist friend of mine (he's a mentor to me) So here it is after a preliminary finishing on the inside.