A cherry crotch bowl (almost)

[Bob Bouis]

About a year ago I intercepted about a dozen cherry logs on their way to... I don't know exactly, but the logger sold them to me for $500. There was one big crotch, but it looked horribly cracked, so I set it aside and sort of forgot about it. The other day I cut it up and found, much to my surprise, that it was mostly intact and that careful cutting could get me two 14" crotch bowls without the natural edge.

The first one went without a hitch. Once turned and about 3/8" thickness. The second one I did tonight, and I decided to core it a little aggressively. You gotta do that to get crotch figure on your cores. Still, it had about 3/8" at the bottom plus the recess. I actually stopped and thought about filling the bark inclusion, but the last one was shallow, so why wouldn't this one be?

Yeah. It broke as I got to about 1" left on the coring (right where it gets rough for whatever reason). That hurt! And not just because it smashed my thumb when it broke.

broke1.jpg

broke2.jpg

[Bob Bouis]

To give the post a happy ending, here's a picture of the other half:

chcr0.jpg

[Wes Ramsey]

Pretty wood! That looks like a good candidate for an art piece. If you can get the halves to hold together with tape/glue/hope to where you could finish turn it you could glue the rims of the two halves together and make a clam shell-type piece. Then you could trim the rough edge or leave it. A clam shell that size would actually make a good passive speaker for a smart phone - just cut a hole in one side for the phone to sit in and it will really amplify the sound.

Just one idea. Another good idea is to cut it into smaller pieces and smoke the Thanksgiving turkey with it. It is too pretty for just plain firewood.

[Olaf Vogel]

Assuming you still have a the foot piece, I would epoxy it back together and try to finish it.
I often get the feeling the people try to turn the "perfect" bowl.

But personally, I like the ones with character and flaws.
Turns out that others do as well - i get the most comments on the "rustic" ones. Those are considered "art"
The perfect ones get comments like "is that a salad bowl?"

[Dok Yager]

Bob you can salvage that nice piece of cherry by cutting both pieces exactly the same amount on the bottom where the crack is. Then glue together the lip on both pieces. You can then mount them to a nice piece of wood and make an elongated piece for the top from an offsetting wood color and make a finial for it. Finally make a nice base for it and you have a Unique piece of art. Just a thought.

[Chance Raser]

Why not cut the middle out and insert something along the lines of this

https://youtu.be/GNFKXhRh7Ss

[Dale Miner]

Life is to short to spend time in the emergency room.

Crotches with large bark inclusions are termed "Failed Crotches". It is beyond dangerous to turn them.

You are lucky this only resulted in a smashed thumb. There have been serious head injuries and fatalities from blanks coming apart during turning.

[John Keeton]

I am with Dale on this one. There are ways other than turning it to make use of the nice figure. Lousy risk/benefit.