Wet madrone is Like a box of chocolates; You just never know what you'll get.

[Russell Neyman]

This urn is the second in the series, but from a tree with traditional red/creme coloring. Neither of these have any finish on them at all and, in fact, have not been sanded. What you see is strictly the result of a bowl gouge.

Here are two vies the urn directly off of the lathe, no finish:
PICT0010.jpg PICT0011.jpg

And a view of the same urn 24 hours later after a coat of boiled linseed oil, two coats of shellac, and three coats of lacquer (including a tinted lacquer to highlight the banding). Yes, that is a hole through the side and the base of the "musical note" shape. Note the warpy lid. The bowl itself has mostly gone oblong, with minimal up-and-down distortion.
Wet Madrone Urn 1a.jpg

[Russell Neyman]

The third wet-turning madrone experiment is more complicated. This one deserves a name because of it's size (13"W x 12"H) so it's called Popcorn. Again, wet-turned madrone less than a week after the tree came down, turned with a very sharp bowl gouge but no sanding, left to dry in ambient air this time.

What made this different is that I left the bowl in my soft jaws (top end in the jaws, of course) unsealed for the first 12 hours. It did as expected: going slightly crookedy and warping, but because of the softjaws, only moderately out-of-round. I took it out and a day later it was kidney bean shaped, which I did not like. So, I steamed it in a large spagetti pot and put it back into the soft jaws, and the result was back to the first stage of crookedy. The useful information for my fellow Creekers is that, yes, you can undo (or, at least, alter) unwanted warp and control the shape it to some extent.

This piece has considerable cross-grain distortion, hi-lo ring texturing, and significant coloring after the re-steaming. This is unsanded and there is absolutely no finish on this yet -- not sure which way to go -- but I will probably tint the bands and only apply BLO to it and polish with the Beal system after a week or two when it's dry. I know that the longer I wait to apply any coatings, the redder it will become. The black lines above and below the beads are burned with a copper wire.

I should add that this stuff is extremely easy to cut with a bowl gouge. From start to finish, the actual turning took about 40 minutes. I spent as much time getting it roughly round with a chainsaw. The steaming took me another half hour. These first three experimental bowls are just an "expedition of exploration" and I haven't even gotten into the figured stuff.

I will post additional photos after finishing.

Wet Madrone Popcorn Bowl 1a.jpg Wet Madrone Popcorn Bowl 1b.jpg

[Trevor Howard]

Thanks for the updates Russel. Have you ever thought/tried turning a green bowl then placing it upside down on a pyramid shape. Then add slight weight to the bottom and see if you can force the bowl to stretch to a square shape as it dries?

[Reed Gray]

If you want to make it conform to a certain shape, you need compression as in a square or triangular form to go on the outside of the bowl. If you put a form on the inside pushing outwards, the bowl will crack. Similar forces to putting a wedge into the grain and driving it in like a splitting wedge.

robo hippy

[Rick Markham]

Neat piece Russell, I'm glad it turned out!

[Rick Markham]

That's super nice too Russell! I really like the tinted band you did on it!