Tasteful Red Oak Pedestal Bowl

Turned from Southern Red Oak, or Spanish Oak, or even Texas Oak this bowl certainly will look good no matter where you put it.  The subtle yet tasteful natural colors of the wood make this piece stand out.  Part of the story of this piece is it was originally going to be a large and deep bowl.  The wood while drying cracked too much to do that with so I kept turning it until I thought I could get a nice cookie jar.  Nope.  Kept turning until you see what you see.  The wood still has some minor flaws in it but to me that adds to the rustic appeal of the piece.  Any cracks were filled and sealed with clear glue and natural dust.  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and finished with a walnut oil based wax.  This gives the bowl a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  I burned a line at the juncture of the base and the bowl for decorative reasons only.  The bowl is 7 ½” in diameter, 4” high, and 2 ½” deep.  The volume measured out to exactly 4 cups to the brim.  30Oct17  BLRO71 For more info see:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/554634118/tasteful-red-oak-pedestal-bowl

Itty Bitty Pecan Bowl

When you think about it, everybody has a use for a bowl of this size.  You might put nuts or candy or change and keys or even potpourri in it.  And when you take in the natural color of pecan that this bowl was turned from you can’t help but love it.  It holds a whopping 1 cup measured to the brim.  The diameter is 5” with a height of 1 ½” and is 1” deep.  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and then finished with a walnut oil/shellac mixture.  This combination gives the bowl a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  18Sep17  BLP169  For more info see:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/566262269/itty-bitty-pecan-bowl

Log Haul Results

Hauled two car hauler trailers full of wood into the log yard yesterday.  One of pecan

and the other was cottonwood.

The average diameter of the pecan is 18" and the cottonwood 32".  This ought to keep me sorta busy for a bit.

Elegant Cottonwood Serving Bowl

Cottonwood is one wood that I think might be just a tad bit underrated.  A lot of people just aren’t all that familiar with it.  Granted it is a soft wood but therefore it is lightweight.  For a lot of people that can be very important.  Besides being soft it is a fibrous wood which has a lot of pros with very few cons.  The main con for this wood is there seems to always be some natural burring in it that you just cannot sand out as it runs all the way through the piece.  To me that just adds to the rustic appeal.  There is a crack in the bottom area that was sealed completely with clear glue and natural dust and coffee grounds.  The same thing with one on the outside.  The bowl is 11” in diameter, 3 ½” high and 2 ½” deep.  The volume is a fabulous ½ gallon to the brim.  This bowl held water just fine.  Just picture it full of your favorite salads or veggies.  And, don’t forget your popcorn!  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and then finished with a walnut oil/shellac mixture.  This combination gives the bowl a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  The mixture was mixed about 50/50 which enables you to still feel the natural grain of the wood.  9Oct17  BLCW84  For more info see:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/563634853/elegant-cottonwood-serving-bowl

Nice Elm Candy/Nut Bowl

The natural color of the wood that this bowl was turned from is really nice looking.  You have a perfect blend of dark and light that only Mamma Nature can provide!  The bowl has a somewhat pedestal form to it and it holds a nice amount of 1 ½ cups measured to the rim.  Of course if you pile up a bunch of nuts or candies in it there will be more than that.  The diameter is 6 ¼” and the height is 2”.  The depth comes to 1 ¼”.  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and then finished with a wax that is walnut oil based.  Totally renewable with olive oil.  Using a combination like this gives the bowl a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  3Oct17  BLE59 For more info see:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/548523342/nice-elm-candynut-bowl

Osage Orange Bowl

Now and then I find myself stumbling around In the shop because pieces of wood decide to jump out under my feet!  I just know they aren’t there because I left them there.  Uhuh  That is where this piece of osage orange, or bodark came from.  I was doing some cleanup and there it was right under my foot screaming “Turn me, turn me”!  So I did.  Now as I have said in the past this is a very dense wood and can really be difficult to work with.  This piece having already dried out was even more so.  But if you are someone who is into rustic  and rugged this bowl is for you.  It has some natural edge that is blackened from a lightning strike which was the cause of this tree’s demise.  There is some of the usual cracking that occurs with this wood so don’t worry about those.  This wood will turn darker to more a burnt orange color in time by a natural oxidation process.  The diameter is 8” with a 2 ½” height and a depth of 2”.  The volume measured out at 4 cups.  It did actually hold water.  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and then finished with a walnut oil/shellac mixture.  This combination gives the bowl a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  3Oct17  BLBA94  For more info see:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/562321995/8-osage-orange-bowl

Red Oak Serving Bowl

Some folks when they see this beautiful bowl turned from red oak are gonna say it’s too pretty to put something in.  Well, come on now.  The wood was sealed with food grade walnut oil and finished with a walnut oil/shellac mixture.  So seeing it’s a natural finish it’s only natural that you would put something good in it.  Right?  So go ahead and fill it up with good tasting things.  It will hold a nice amount.  The volume measured 3 cups to the brim.  The diameter of the bowl is 8 ¾” with a height of 2” and it’s comes to being 1 ¼” deep.  And, when you use a sealing and finish combination like was used here the bowl has a nice hard long lasting natural finish.  One of a kind bowl with nice graceful lines.  3Oct17  BLRO69  Need more info?  Click:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/548522238/lovely-red-oak-serving-bowl

Some Log Hauling

I have been doing a bit of log hauling and thought I would post a couple of photos or so of them.  This is not by any means all of it.  We have been stalled on moving the rest due to rains.  These are coming from horse pasture lands.  The pecan is mainly from upper parts while the cottonwood is coming from a draw area.  After heavy rains we have to wait for it dry out or the truck and trailer would get stuck.  Keep in mind that these pecan logs are actually branch wood coming from trees that are around 5' in diameter.  Big, big trees.  The diameter of the pecan logs ranges from 14" up to 18".  The cottonwood logs are trunk wood from two trees and average 32" in diameter.  The cottonwood logs are rather scattered as we just rolled them off the back of the trailer and let them go where they wanted to.  Going to organize and stack them after the work is completed.  The first two photos are cottonwood and then the pecan.