Cherry Slabs

[Ed Scolforo]

Last week I was fortunate enough to have a friend take down one of his many cherry trees and slab them up for bowl blanks. This is the result of our day's work. I had started to turn one and had suspended the job after having roughed out the outside and only having done a small part of the inside. I didn't think to cover the blank overnight, and, as you may guess, it had cracked by morning. I learn the hard way. Today I roughed out (completely!) a blank that was about 9 1/2 inches by 4 inches deep. Boy did my Jet Mini cry! It's in an alcohol bath right now. Wish me luck! My hope is to be able to turn some nice cherry bowls in the way that Jim and Glenn have been doing.
Ed

[Dave Smith]

Wow, nice haul. I see why you were worried about losing all your turnings. As I said before I don't think your first turning is indicative of what will happen with the rest of the cherry. Remember that you need to take it easy on your mini lathe with light cuts and you will not have any problem.

Dave Smith

Lots of wood and no time to turn in Longview, WA.

[Richard Wolf]

Boy, there is a lot of future bowls in your backyard.

Richard

[Carole Valentine]

You better seal up those slabs though if you are not going to prepare balnks immediately, or they will split on you.

[Raymond Overman]

Nice haul. I absolutely love turning green cherry but as Carol suggested, you definitely want to seal the ends. I've had a 4' log of cherry split from end to end within a month after laying it down when I didn't seal it. Like you, I learned the hard way.

Good luck and let's see some bowls!

[Jim Ketron]

Nice Haul Ed!

Cherry is one of my favorites to turn. Looks like some nice dark looking stuff, enjoy and have fun!
Cant wait to see some cherry bowls come off that Jet!
Looks Like I spy a nice burl on that tree in the background, Kinda looks Like some maple
Jim

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Ed, very nice collection of bowl blanks you have there! Good luck on turning them!

[Ed Scolforo]

Jim: I was wondering who was going to mention that burl! Right, it is maple. BTW, I immediately sealed the end grain with "end grain sealer", Woodcraft's version of Anchorseal. And I hope to cut them into rounds as time permits. Today I take my drunken blank out of the alchy bath!

Ed