Bowl Carving Process...
March, 2005

This bowl is now in a private collection.

Cherry Bowl 14" x 7-1/2" x 5"
by Steve Schmeck

This piece began it transformation as a 46-pound black cherry log section. It was heavy 
and green which I like best when working on a larger, deeper bowl. The first cuts released 
a strong aroma reminiscent of Wild Cherry Cough Drops. The log was split in half with 
steel and wooden wedges.  The next step was determining the bowl's orientation within 
the log; in this case, I decided to take advantage or some very nice grain coloring in the last 
few years of the trees growth.

 

Above: I've laid out the rough shape of the bowl's legs/feet and chopped away some of the wood to get the bowl's shape. This is a critical time as the overall shape, and to  some extent, its size, are determined here. 2/28/2005.   Here are a few of the gouges used at this stage of the carving. Some folks use power carvers to speed up this phase but I generally prefer to take it slow to better control the emergence of the shape.
 
Here I'm marking out the profiles for the feet. Even at this point I allow myself the freedom to alter the design and in this case decided to make the feet more delicate than the outlines would suggest.   The outside of the bowl is pretty much shaped and I've chipped away the waste wood above rim height. 3/6/2005
 
Pretty well cleaned out, with a thickness of about 3/8". I will try for about 3/16" unless it starts to look too thin for the overall design. 3/8/2005   When the bowl was thinned and smoothed out it looked OK but needed something to help show off the nice swooping rim line. I decided to carve a lacey, open rim treatment. A significant time commitment but it feels better already.
3/12/2005



Here is the bowl in its final form with one coat of oil finish. Only another couple of weeks of finishing and the transformation from log to bowl will be complete. I'll let the finish cure beside the wood heating stove and on a sunny window sill for a couple of days between applications. I've sanded down to 400-grit to get that smooth, smooth feel. By hand sanding one can actually feel and hear the progression towards this level of finish. 3/23/2005                                        Click on graphic for larger images.

If you would like to comment on this bowl you can write to me at:  steve@manytracks.com

  <<< Back to 'In Progress' >>>