The wonderful Rory Brown offered to give me a few hours of instruction on the wood lathe and I jumped at the chance. ➡ He is the former president of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association and served on the executive of the BC Teachers Federation. He taught high school in Vancouver for 15 years before joining the BCIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Rory is currently one of the instructors on the Technology Teacher Education Diploma. Students complete this 2-year course before entering UBC to complete their Teacher Education program (where I am one of their instructors). I’ve been spending a lot of time at BCIT getting to know the cohort of students who are currently completing their TTED so that we can better teach and learn together in September.
Teachers teach; pedagogues teach while also actively investigating teaching and learning.
Taking Rory up on his offer means that I get to learn and practice some more hands-on skills, a great continuation of the introduction I had to the machines in the ➡ Student Machine Shop course ⬅ at UBC.
Rory had chosen a piece of weeping birch that came from a downed tree not far from his home. He introduced me to the formidable band saw and I cut the piece into a rough cylinder:
(make relief cuts to avoid having to pull the blade out of a curved cut)
Next, I attached it to the lathe and tried to make more uniformly cylindrical and then tapered towards the bottom
feeling confidentfeeling humbledgetting more bowlish
It was a little alarming at first when connecting the tools with the spinning (1000rpm!) piece. I thought I’d gotten the hang of it and then thwunk! the tool dug in, resulting in the shitshow in the middle pic. Next, Rory stepped in and made a tenon at the base so that I could mount the piece on the other orientation and work on the inside (after I’d sanded it with sandpaper [50, 50, 220])
Rory making the tenonpost-sandingstarting on the inside
Next came the slower work of revealing the inside of the bowl; this was very satisfying and I kept thinking of Knopfler’s Monteleone as the shavings and sawdust flew. Eventually, I’d shaped the inside and the lip. Applying beeswax to the inside/outside put a lovely quick finish on the piece. Rory took the base to the belt sander to fix a chip that had come off when the bowl….eh…flew off the lathe at one point. I then finished the base with some more beeswax and ze heat gun.
could have sanded more…finishing with beeswax“Roy’s Bowl”
During the day, I had chats with end encouragement from my future students (h/t Alex MacAulay), some of whom were working on machines close by. I could also see the work of former students around me and consider all the things they learned in SW9 and at UBC and how they are connected.
An important reminder, from the wonderful Haejin
A great day, overall. I look forward to learning more.
(May 3, 2015). “A few good Shakers wanted“ ➡ Last few members hope young African-American novice can revive religion’s communal society
H/t to Brian Ennis for inspiring me to learn more about Bill Reid
“Joy is a well-made object, equalled only by the joy of making it”
Bill Reid, 1988
May 6, 2024: Bowl 2
Today, I worked on my second bowl. This one is of Western maple, from a tree that fell in at this spot in Theodosia Arm. With Caverly’s help, Rory moved a large section of the tree to his boat; eventually, it made its way to BCIT.
Rory spent much of today milling boards from the trunk while, with the assistance of some students, I learned some new tricks.
Used the band saw to round out the blank; attached the face plate to the blank and connected it to the lathe.
Rounded out the sides, leaving a rough bottom; squared the bottom so the piece looks like a wheel of cheese; started shaping the bottom of the bowl and made the slot for the mortise connection so that I could flip the bowl and shape the inside [my first bowl, above, used a tenon]
Sanded the outside of the piece: 60, 80, 100, 120, 150
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Rory mentioned:
(I finally understood this about 8 months later!)
Reaction wood; tension/compression
Conversion of reciprocating motion to rotary motion.
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Had to call it a day but will likely finish this on Friday. Came home with pockets full of sawdust but in good headspace; other students have said it – making bowls is addictive.
May 10: Bowl 2 contd.
Today, I learned more about the piece of spalted, quilted, bigleaf Western/red maple (acer rubrum) I have been working with.
Continuing from where I left off on Monday, I needed to round out the sides a bit.I might have spent a little more time working and sanding the piece before using the beeswax to fininsh
Still, it feels, looks, and smells great; not bad for a second attempt though I am starting to get the feel of it a little more so I may be more ambitious (and careful) next time. Note the spalting on the lip at 6 o’clock and the quilting at 11 on the inside. Gifted to Shannon
May 20 onward
I’m popping into the woodshop quite a bit these days. My next goal is to get comfortable using the skew to make beads on a length of wood.
This involves moving the tool (more carefully) through three dimensions and is a lot more challenging (for me) than just using the carbide -tipped gouge.
Yesterday, I tried again ⬇ to get the hang of the skew (& parting tool) and made some progress. Next time, I’ll practice some more and make my honey dipper
Two pics, showing my attempt to make beads; it finally clicked what I was trying to do right before I had to stop. These Eureka! moments on the lathe continue to amaze/intrigue me.
Bowl 3
This piece is from the same Western maple tree as bowl two. I blanked it some time in August and set it aside as got some more practice in on the lathe. I wanted to try to make a deep bowl with thin walls and a think base.
The result was very light and gave me a sense of accomplishment as it showed my improvement since bowl 1. I almost doughnuted the piece as there is only a few mm of thickness at the mortice but that’s what I was going for.
Western Maple; Blanked in Aug, finished in Dec. I cut the mortice myself Gifted to Conor.
Sept 2024: Bowl 4 – “epoxy”
I’m going to be spending quite a few Fridays at BCIT on the coming year. I’ll be in the library sometimes, but I will also be in SW9, chatting with Brian or learning from with Rory and the TTED crew in the woodshop.
Sept 20: Got the chance to make some sawdust and spent the day learning more about turning a bowl out of hard wood.
Maple, with a wicked crack down the middleTurned; feels & looks like marbleKayden’s awesome sliding tool rest
Bowl 4 – “epoxy”
I used these “jumbo jaws” for the first time but the piece is really heavy and it was not the best idea. The plan was to not cut a mortise but I ended up doing it anyway so I had more stability. With help, I dammed the side with tape and put some epoxy into this large crack.
Jan 20, 2025: I dammed the side myself this time and applied some more epoxy. Hopefully it’ll be ready to rock next week.
Jan 31, 2025: Finally finished this and, after all the trouble it took, I’ve decided to keep it for myself. You can see the epoxy filling at the five o’clock position. It was my first time doing that so it’s not a great job but I’ll know better for next time. I could have spent more time on the finish but sometimes “good enough” will suffice.
Bowl 4 done and I’m keeping this one for myself. There are some tool marks evident but I just ran out of steam with this one.
Feb 14, 2025: Decided to rework this to make it a suitable gift. Sanded and sanded and sanded; gifted to Barry and Maryliss.
The reworked bowl. Far fewer tool marks; finished with bees wax instead of liquid plastic.
Initialled with wood burning tool
December 2024: Bowl 5 – “Nicholle’s Bowl”
I’m writing this from my favourite corner of the library at BCIT. It’s January and, though the year & term have just started, I am feeling stretched thin already. Coming back to this page and reflecting on the work I did on this bowl is taking a time-out to consider how far I have come and where I am going next, so I can simply be here, where I am now.
KF: Looks fairly round, right? [Narrator; it was not, in fact, round at all]
I started working on this bowl in December 2024. It’s a cut from the same tree as Bowl 3, silver maple, and is extremely hard; it feels more like stone than wood and it’s VERY heavy.
Some things I learned:
A large bowl is exponentially more difficult to make than a small bowl; of course the scale is different but it’s more than than. For now, I’ll compare it to the difference between caring for, walking, & picking up after a small v large dog.
Wood is an incredible carbon sink; Trees are extremely efficient at carbon sequestration.
I think of this when I see the HUGE piles of shavings that I made while turning this bowl. I could not believe just how much shavings there were. It did not seem possible that such a volume could be produced from the block. It made me appreciate how dense this piece of wood is and how well it was able to compress such a volume.
I may be thinking entirely wrong about this. I’ll return if/when I learn more.
This was the bowl I made where I used the tailstock; I shoud have done this on Bowl 4 instead of using the Jumbo Jaw. Because the block was so heavy, I needed the extra support but it meant that I had less access/room to maneuver when I was working. I did not enjoy this.
Properly rounding your piece on the band saw before attaching it to the facepiece is super important. I drew a circle on the block and cut, what I thought at the time, was a pretty good circle. I made relief cuts and a pretty good fist of staying on the line but, as soon as I turned the piece on the spindle I could feel the problem.
It was fairly round but the weight of the piece meant that the minor variations that I could have worked out quite easily on softer wood were comparatively more consequential.
Even at 350rpm, the vibrations told me that things were not as they should be. The whole lathe was shaking and, even though the variation in diameter was not huge, the difference was enough to teach me how important balancing a flywheel is.
Back to the band saw I went and made a more careful round cut.
I had it in mind to make a particular shape. It did not work out exactly as I had in mind but I did make an attractive curved lip which meant I could remove some wood from inside the curve. I had to use a new tool for this and though it was rewarding, it was not especially enjoyable.
Left; before treating with mineral oil. Right; after treatment.
Bowl 6 : “Tiě fàn wǎn”
Will be my last bowl for a while. I need to learn some new skills and techniques so I’m going to try to do some barely twists and Kester‘s senior projects
It’s another piece of hard and heavy silver maple with the bonus that someone, some time ago, drove a bunch of nails into is that I uncovered as I was working the piece.
I thought I was going to have to chuck it but Lily gave me some help and advice so I think I’ll try to rescue it and learn some new tricks along the way.
I need to learn to use different gouges
The long nail annular nail I drilled and yanked and Lily sawed out the piece.
Another nail I exposed while on the lathe. Note: no carbide bits were hurt during the process.
With pull saw, chisel & mallet, and epoxy, I got my block into the damaged section and clamped it.
Ta da! It ain’t perfect by any means but I tried and learned some new things with this one. There’s a lovely feel to the grooves; something to experiment with down the line.
Next
Kathleen showed me this and her plans to turn into a pillbox. I’m thinking I’ll try to replicate what she does and learn to make something different.
