Some turnings from today

[Bill in Buena Park]

I haven't had much productive shop time lately (I did finally install a HF airhose reel, but no product has resulted yet from that ). Today I decided to try to turn a pen from an old ficus branch. Drilled out the pith for the tubes, BLO/CA finish, and the pen in the pictures below is the result. Also hadn't turned a bowl in a while, so took a chunk of spalted maple and made the one in the pictures below, finish is just turner's wax. Forgot how hard and slow old maple is to turn... Thanks for looking.

[Black wallnut]

Nice looking stuff!

[Richard in Smithville]

Beautiful work Bill.

[Two Much]

That is so nice. The bowl is so pretty.
I wish I could turn like that .

[gerti]

Nice job on the bowl! Ficus? Interesting, how did that turn and finish?

[Bill in Buena Park]

Thanks all for the kind comments.

Gerti, the ficus was soft, and turned very easily. I'm wondering if too soft to make a durable pen for any length of time, but I'm not enamored yet of the spiral-cut grain look to it - it reminds me of plywood.

And to be more accurate about the spalted maple I used for the bowl, it is more properly "ambrosia" maple. Here is a slightly smaller bowl I turned from another chunk of it. This one had BLO applied, then the turner's wax.

[gerti]

Thanks for the info on the ficus. Nice job on the other bowl too!

[lrr]

Maple bowls are very nice. I've mostly turned "spindle" stuff --pens, tool handles, wine stoppers, and a couple peppermills. I did buy a bowl gouge about 6 months ago. Need to turn a handle for it, and then maybe I can consider bowls and other "non-spindle" projects.

[atgcpaul]

Bill, nice work. How big is that bowl?

[Bill in Buena Park]

Thanks Lee & Paul. The bowl from the first post is a 6inch bowl, and the second one is a 5 inch bowl.