Woodturning: Sugar Maple Natural Edge Bowl - Scalloped and Spalted

Turning Spalted Maple - A Natural Edge Bowl

I picked up a couple of logs from a sugar maple tree that someone had cut off a few feet above the ground at some point. Where the trunk fell, they cut it into logs a couple of feet in length and there it lays. I assume it was dead, as there was no bark on the stump or on any of the trunk pieces on the ground, and it had some pretty good spalting started . It seemed relatively solid and didn’t have huge cracks, so I cut down a couple of the chunks and brought it home.

I figured it would be relatively dry, but was surprised when I checked this blank and it came out over 23%. It had some punky bits but it also had some nice spalting and the awesome scalloped edges that maple trees get sometimes so I thought it would make a great candidate for a natural edge bowl. My plan was to turn it green and see how it behaved before I did anything with the other pieces.

I used a bunch of tricks I picked up from ‪@Lyle‬, including starting between centers and repositioning the blank to balance the wings and the laser pointer to help line them up. If you haven’t already subscribed to his YouTube channel you should definitely check him out - full of tons of tricks & techniques.

It had a lot of worm/ant/bug holes and/or trails and I tried some Milliput to fill them and smooth the surface. That didn’t work out quite how I’d hoped but I’ll definitely use the Milliput in future projects.

I ended up just rough turning this blank and sticking it in the kiln with an oak burl and the big walnut bowl I recently cored so I’ll give it a couple of weeks and see where it is.

#woodturning #naturaledgebowl #spaltedmaple #scallopedandspalted