# May Challenge (Post Pictures here before 10pm-27th .)



## Blister (29 Apr 2011)

May Challenge , A Bowl 

This months Challenge is to produce a stunning bowl 

Bowl as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary ( …a round, deep dish or basin used for food or liquid… ) 

Our Judge for May will be Barry ( Thanks Barry ) 

I will ask Barry to comment on the top 5 placed entry's ( as requested )

Rules

Any wood type

Any design

Texturing / piercing / colouring / carving / burning / engraving all allowed 

Lets see how creative we can be :mrgreen: 



Same format as previous months

NO Critique or comments on any work until June Please, After the Judging and results.

Please state item size, width and height and wood type if known and a little about how you made it and what finish you used ( this helps the judge )

The Judges decision is final.

Please post 3 images of your work
1 side profile 
1 showing the top detail 
1 showing the underneath 
Image size please use image size 640 x 480 0.3 mp, same as January ,February and March .
Please notify me your entry’s are ready by 10 pm on the 25th May after this time the thread will be locked

Entry’s to be uploaded from 10pm on 25th May up until 10pm on the 27th May after this time the thread will be locked for Judging

Results will be given on or before 31st May

Good luck to everyone, 

Any questions please ask in the discussion thread


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## Paul.J (25 May 2011)

Here is my May bowl entry.
It is a Burr wood bowl,i don't know what the wood is as it was given at my first bash a few years ago now.
I didn't bother with any carving texturing colouring etc as i thought this wood has enough beauty in it to show as is.
This bowl is 7-1/2" dia by 2-3/4" high,finished in hardwax oil and lightly buffed.


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## dennisk (26 May 2011)

Well this months project was going to made of MicroLam, a plywood beam material we use instead of dimensional lumber. Lets just say it kept blowing up.

Anyway this bowl is made of a scrap of white oak left over from the kitchen I built for our house a few years back. The piece was not much bigger than now so I glued a block of red oak to the end where the bowl like depression is and drilled a hole for the Oneway jumbo screw. I made a recess for the jaws and turned it over and turned the bowl , sanded it and then jointed about 3 mm off the bottom to remove the chucking recess, cut the block of red oak off the end and hand sanded it. Then is sprayed it with lacquer. I used a parting tool, 3/8 bowl gouge and a Raffan sc

The bowl is 4 1/2" x 9 1/2" x 1 1/4" and is the end of a rough board. The end opposite the bowl still has the chainsaw markings. Thanks.


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## duncanh (26 May 2011)

My entry is made from a piece of lime which had been lying around for a while with a couple of worm hole in it (it had a spell in the freezer just in case there were any worms left in). Anyway, I needed a way to hide the holes so I thought I'd cut them out completely and try something that I'd always fancied.
Once turned the holes were drilled and cut to shape, inside and out then carved with combination of power carver, hand carving, burrs in dremmel. Then lots of sanding with home-made sanding discs in dremmel. Pyrgraphy done using Peter Child burner with various wire tips.

Bowl is 29cm x 5cm, finished with lemon oil.


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## Wood spoiler (26 May 2011)

Blister":3kqtk5kw said:


> May Challenge , A Bowl
> 
> This months Challenge is to produce a stunning bowl
> Bowl as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary ( …a round, deep dish or basin used for food or liquid… )



Hopefully you will agree that this fulfills the criteria. I have tried to do things a bit different in as much it is usually the case that with bowls the outside becomes the "featured" aspect. I see this is as a bowl that will sit on display on a coffee table and as such will be looked down upon. I therefore wanted a bowl that opened itself to the viewer, hence the open ogee form of the underlying bowl and the decoration being on the inside of the bowl. It is a very tactile piece and the motif on the foot has derived positive comment as folks have turned it in their hands. 

It has been carved with burrs and pyrographed, finished with finishing oil and then buffed to give a silky feel. It is another first for me not having carved before - so again thanks to the Competition for making me do something new.

The bowl before being set upon was 300 mm x 75 mm 

The bowl is sycamore, although the finished colour makes it appear a bit Elm like.

I had difficulty with the photographs trying to fully reflect the bowl as it is in the flesh. The bottom view still looks a bit "Bug Eyed". I played with different backgrounds and settled on these photos as being the best, but struggling as per Gordon's comments in his "Maybe I need a new camera" thread.

Enough of my blah, blah, blah .... My Photos:

Side View






Top View






Bottom View


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## nev (26 May 2011)

heres mine, not stunning, but a decorated bowl none the less (note the lines  )this was my third go at a deco bowl after some abysmal colouring and texturing attempts.
very green ash (it was still growing three weeks ago!).about 6in diameter and 5in tall, finished with cellulose sanding sealer and some fiddes soft wax.
must go and buy a burger now as using macd's wifi cos my tinterweb is down


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## Hudson Carpentry (26 May 2011)

My "token" entry this month is nothing what I wanted to do. I had planned a carving and offset bowl but thought I would need 3 days to complete. Work this month has had me working 12 hours 7days a week. Once the project I was working on was complete there wasn't enough time, then my after thought idea, once turned, I messed up the "details" so with that I present my VERY rushed and simple after after thought. It was that rushed I forgot to sand the top of the rim (hammer) 

Iroko - 130mm diameter. 52mm height. Finsihed in danish oil after sanding to 120grit and burnished with own shavings.


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## myturn (26 May 2011)

My bowl is made from an elm burr I was given ages ago and was keeping until I felt ready to attempt it.

It measures 10" in diameter and 5" high.

I used the pillar-drill to drill a 1" hole in the burr side using a forstner bit then mounted that on 1" expanding jaws on the scroll chuck to turn the outside shape and foot. 

Having shaped the outside it was sanded down to 400 grit, the chuck jaws changed for a larger set and then the bowl turned round to grip the foot in compression to do the inside.

The inside was then sanded again to 400 then sanding sealer applied to inside and outside and buffed.

Then time to try out my new Chestnut buffing system which was probably a mistake as I then spent ages removing the buffing wheel fibres from the bark edge and all the holes in the burr! 

All turning done with a 5/8" Irish grind bowl gouge and 3/8" spindle gouge for the foot and finished with a large round scraper. 

This was the first time I've done a proper natural edge like this and it was quite harrowing at times when cutting mostly air on the outer edge. 

Also you have to keep remembering that what appears to be space while it is turning is only gaps and I got several reminders as I went to remove shavings from the lathe bed and met the edge with my hand. Ouch!


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## gus3049 (26 May 2011)

This is my entry for May. Having been through many complicated ideas for decoration, came down to simplicity in the end. Hopefully, less is more. I wanted the wood to be the main feature with this one.

Its walnut, 320mm (12.6") diameter and 75mm (3") high. Blank put onto screw chuck on the Versachuck, clearing the lathe bed by around 1mm. 

Dovetail recess cut for doing the inside. Outside done with my metal cutting profile chisel and scrapers. 

I did the hollowing out with my new rig with the Kelton arm installed just to see how it goes. Totally unnecessary of course but it don't arf make it easy on the arms and hands. Cuts very cleanly leaving minimal sanding necessary, but used an arbor in the drill anyway.

Cut a couple of deepish grooves around the lip with the skew and textured between them using the Dremel. Sealed all bar the band with lacquer and then spirit stained the band, firstly with blue, sanded lightly and then with green. In the flesh it looks much more dappled than the pic shows. Finally, put five finishing coats of lacquer on and cut back with wet and dry to 1200 grit, T'cut and a home made paste wax. (Bees wax, paraffin wax, turps and walnut oil, all mixed together at midnight on a full moon dressed in suitable fashion with the cauldron bubbling)

The catalyst lacquer is chemically inert, apart from being an ideal finish for guitars where it takes knocks without marking, its used on pub bars and industrial floors so its a little over the top for domestic stuff but I like to play safe as we all know how rough people can be with stuff when doing the washing up. Even resists egg yolk .

As I don't have a buffer of any kind, its finished off the old fashioned way with elbow grease.


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## miles_hot (27 May 2011)

Whilst this is not the bowl that I _wanted_ to make for the decorative section it is never the less one that I am intensely proud of and certainly was well received by the recipient  

It is made from an 18mm plank of possibly Mahogany which is the last surviving plank of my deceased Grandfather's stock of wood. I came up with the idea of making this into a bowl over a year ago. I decided to make a contrasting detail of the join - required as the plank was too narrow to make a decent bowl and Dodge and DickM were (very) kind enough to donate some maple and holly respectively as the contrasting wood. In the end I had to go for the maple as 1) it was slightly whiter and 2) there were two bits of it for when I messed up. Having never done a dovetail before it was all a bit of a challenge.

Anyway I made a good tight sliding dovetail in the Mahogany and maple and then trimmed off all but 2mm of the maple and then made another dovetail in that and fitted the other Mahogany element and then made it approx round on the bandsaw. So now I have an 18mm platter blank.

Mount on the lathe using a glue block and retire to the computer to work out the angles and spacing of the cuts required to make the rings which will be glued together to make the bowl blank. Calculations done return to the lathe and make a tool rest from wood and fix on the angles printed of from Sketchup. Apply thinest parting tool (to ensure that I have the most wood to play with) and away we go. Any away goes the wood across the garage as the parting tool slightly binds and spits off the wood. Damn. Leave bowl alone for a bit.... 

Grind brand new parting tool which is made from a ratty old scrapper and is thinner than my 3-4mm diamond parting tool but has the same sort of profile, remount the disc and get on with it. Thank God I now have three rings. Sand down on a bit of 320 glued to some MDF to ensure I don't round over any edges. Glue together with PVA and then mount. Carefully turn the bowl inside and out (except for the foot) and sand through the grits to 400. The bowl gets down to around 2-3 mm at the edge and gets gently thicker as it heads to the bottom (the inner curve does not match the outer if you see what I mean) to give some tactile weight towards the bottom whilst dealing with the necessary thickness at the transitions between rings.

Reverse the bowl to do the foot (discover that the cole jaws are 10mm to small, make new wooden jaws to fit!) - I turned the base into a curve to make the bowl lighter as I wanted it to feel "fine" but still be strong enough to use. Sand through the grits again. BUff bowl (get Caroline to do the writing on the bottom as my writing is rubbish and my nerves are shot) and finish with wax (buffed).

Finished bowl of priceless Mahogany with Maple detail, 9" across delivered to my Grandma for her 96th Birthday the day ofter the bowl was finished  Utterly chuffed with the bowl and it looked amazing in the sunlight. The pictures (as always) don't do it justice but I only had 30 mins to take them before we piled into the car to deliver it. Hope you like it 

Miles


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## Jonzjob (27 May 2011)

Mine is very dry English elm bought over with us when we moved. I've kept it simple so the lovely grain shows through. It is 9 1/2" X 5" and being as it is intended for use on the table is finished with celulose sanding sealer with 2 coats of melamine laquer and buffed on my Beal system. Nice and easy to clean...

Even though it is a fairly large bowl I wanted to try to keep it looking as light as possible and I think that it has worked well. I decided that because the wood has such a lovely grain it would be OTT to decorate it, not even with pyrography. I carried the flow of the sides onto the base and the only actual edge is the rim. It makes it really nice to handle.


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## monkeybiter (27 May 2011)

Gulp! Now I've seen some of the competition I hardly dare submit my entry  .....as usual :roll: 

Wood: Ash log/bowl, ash and holly mushrooms, all from the garden.
Sanding sealer and beeswax in the bowl.

Quite pleased with the intentional tufts at the top of the mushroom stalks.

It was the scariest thing I've spun on the lathe, even when it was balanced, shook too much to spin above lowest speed. :shock:


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## callumlovatt (27 May 2011)

This is my bowl for this month. It is made from sycamore and measures about 6cm tall by 14.5 cm in diameter. I shaped the bowl as normal and then carved the grooves out by hand with a gouge. I then took shape down a bit, leaving the outside rim higher than the rest. When this was done I burned the high points. The bowl has been finished in danish oil.


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## RATWOOD (27 May 2011)

Here is my May bowl entry
it is colourer with chestnut ebonising lacquer and Spirit Stain and texturing used a proxxon LWS long neck angle grinder 
the wood is ash I hope you like it


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## jumps (27 May 2011)

Finally my first entry...(don’t mention egg cups again)
The wood is spalted Zebrano, a block that caught my eye at the SE Woodworking Show last month.
Mounted to a large screw chuck initially, then reversed to an expanding collet in recess, finally back to a jamb to smooth recess (cut at a slight angle to the grain even a shallow one looked like a cliff side!)
Tools were a ½” Bowl Gouge- standard grind, and ¼” parting tool, 320/400 then nyweb 
Finish was 50/50 sanding sealer and WW22
Size is 135mm x 65mm












Thank you for looking


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## jumps (27 May 2011)

Finally my first entry...(don’t mention egg cups again)
The wood is spalted Zebrano, a block that caught my eye at the SE Woodworking Show last month.
Mounted to a large screw chuck initially, then reversed to an expanding collet in recess, finally back to a jamb to smooth recess (cut at a slight angle to the grain even a shallow one looked like a cliff side!)
Tools were a ½” Bowl Gouge- standard grind, and ¼” parting tool, 320/400 then nyweb 
Finish was 50/50 sanding sealer and WW22
Size is 135mm x 65mm












Thank you for looking


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## Silverbirch (27 May 2011)

Here is my effort for this month.
Size: 180mm x180mm x40mm Timber: Timber: Ash
Starting with a square blank, I turned the central bowl shape, then the wings were carved and cut to shape, before being scorched, wirebrushed and sprayed with acrylic black lacquer.
I used gilt cream on the rim of the bowl and the fissures in the wings of the bowl. 
Finally, the whole lot was sprayed with satin acrylic lacquer.

Ian


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## Haldane (27 May 2011)

Hi

Here's my attempt at a decorated bowl, this is the first time i've attempted any decoration so started with a practice piece using techniques described in magazine article to see how things went, with the intenion of a more original piece using the techniques I thought worked well. As usual life got in the way and i never got past my exercise but decided to post pics as i'm pleased with the result if not the originality. Approx 10" da by 3" high sycamore bowl with carved decoration on the rim, the centre is coloured with a selection of chesnut dye's applied with scrunched up cloth and black acrylic spray pint on the rim

















Dave


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## Leo (27 May 2011)

This is my May entry,

It is a piece of the root, from a Brazilian Pepper tree, hence the grain going in all directions and many colours incl. silver.

I decided to make this more difficult by going deep and straight sided, nearly.

It is finished with Boiled linseed oil and buffed, not too shiny, because IMHO. it would not look good with a gloss finish. About 8" high and 6" wide at the top tapering down to aprox. 4" at the bottom.

Must be worth 1 point at least....LOL


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## SVB (27 May 2011)

Here's my entry for this month.

This is my tribute to Bert Marsh - I was fortunate to meet him as a brand new 'newbie' at an AWGB seminar and he spent a good 15 mins talking to me about pieces in the instant gallery and what would be good to try to develop skills when starting out - a true gentleman who will be missed.

So here goes - Masur Birch - approx 9" diam - 5" tall and base 1 1/2" dia. Finished in shellac and buffed.

Simon


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## Melinda_dd (27 May 2011)

Hi Everyone.
Here is my may entry, and I think it's stunning, and I'm keeping it, and no one is gonna get it... mine all mine!  

I know it's not decorated but.... being a beginner, and self taught (mainly) I want to concentrate on my turning skills first.
Also a huge factor to this month's challenge was that I don't have anything to decorate with.... I did think that I could burn some lines in with wire, or put some beads in a very plain bit of wood... however on cutting into the wood, I found this was no plain bit of wood!!! It's the best piece of wood i've turned yet!

I kept the design chunky because I didn't want to run the risk of turning some of the beauty away by either thinning the walls or doing a different shape and not being able to see as much.... if that makes sense.

It's made from Elm from the bargain bin at my local woodturning place. It measures 11cm across and 5cm high. 
I turned a spigot on the base and the outside shape on a small faceplate (being a small lathe!), Then gripped it on my patriot chuck and turned the inside. Then..... I made a jam chuck and turned the spigot off with a slight concave for stability =D> This was a first for me, I was terrified I was going to destroy my beautiful bowl but managed it =D> =D> 

I used a bowl gauge to do most of it, I did try a small scraper for the inside, but I didn't like the finish so just tried a bit harder with the gauge! sanded to 800 and finished with 2 coats of friction polish.
I really hope you like it, because I'm chuffed to bits with it


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## johnny.t. (27 May 2011)

Here's my entry, I've only just got the photos done as it was a complete pig to get a pic of!! Its Ash 9" wide 2" tall. Its ebonised and the open grain highlighted with silver gilt cream. The textured band is dyed purple with silver accent.


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## Blister (27 May 2011)

My Entry For May 

Turned from Sycamore 13 " wide 2" tall 

Lots of work 

Fitted to a face plate , bottom turned and finished to 400 grit , Sanding sealer , And wax , chuck spigot

Turned onto chuck , fact trued up , bowl element turned and marked out into 8 divisions , Hand drilled and sawn with a fretsaw , divisions sanded by hand 

Wire laced on one division

Dremel free hand with rotary burr 

Rim burnt with Pyrography

Face then ebonised , 

build up 4 layers of iridescent colours 

then Acrylic lacquer 

I have included as many of the allowed elements of this months challenge :wink: 

Side profile





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.
Underside




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.

Top Face


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## Pvt_Ryan (27 May 2011)

Mod Edit: Late entry included at the request of Alan (Blister) CHJ

Well looks like I missed the deadline by 30secs so here is my (ex) entry.

Rippled Sycamore
Burnished in own shavings
Finish is chestnut sanding sealer & clear wax


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