Learning the Turning #18
A taller Huon Pine bowl
When I saw this blank, I thought -- such a beautiful piece of wood, I'm going to stop trying for "beautiful" -- the wood itself handles that nicely -- and try for "exquisite".
Arrogant much? Perhaps. But a guy has to have goals, doesn't he?
Deeper bowls are a little more difficult to turn, as I like the short tungsten-carbide scrapers, so confidence-inspiring that they are, but they don't have a lot of reach. This means they're not quite as stable once you start extending your reach inside the bowl. Fortunately, Huon Pine is very forgiving due to its very close grain structure.
Ultimately I went to the high-speed steel bowl scraper, which looks a bit like a comma on a stick. Sharpened. I'm getting a lot more confident about sharpening chisels.
And why do they call it High Speed Steel? Simply that it melts at a higher temperature, which means you can sharpen it without turning blue. The chisel, that is -- I don't hold my breath during the process.
Beautiful materials always make you hold you breath, just a little. And the challenge of beautiful materials makes us stretch our own potential, even if just to try to keep up with nature.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And Huon Pine (not a true pine) is exceedingly rare, growing only in one place in the world. New logging is prohibited, the only source is reclaimed from flooded trees from Lake Pedder. It was a prized source of ship masts in the 18th century as it grew tall and straight and enormously resistant to rot or infestation. A three inch thick tree would be over a hundred years old.
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