Finish Turn My Apricot Bowl

This woodturning project picks up from a green turning completed about 3 months ago.

The wood is apricot crotch from a neighbor’s tree.

I attempted to microwave the rough bowl. After many 60 minute cycles at 10% power, there was no loss of weight and the wood was still cool. After many more 60 minute cycles at 20% power, the wood was hot and had developed many nasty checks or cracks. It had only lost about 11% of its original weight.

It has now been about five months. It has lost 36% of its original weight and is probably quite dry.

For me turning a green bowl is quick and fun. Shavings fly and the bowl rapidly emerges from the blank.

Finish turning the dry blank requires more care. There’s less margin for error and the wood is hard.

But, in the end, the figure emerges and the bowl “blossoms.”


2 Responses to “Finish Turn My Apricot Bowl”

  1. Gord Munn says:

    Nice Job. I’m enjoying your work and learning from it… I’m fairly new to a lathe. The cracks add more character:) Enjoy them. I have read that a microwave should have 2 minute sessions max (time not temp) even on larger bowls and less on smaller bowls. They also should get long cooling- and drying ( 1/2 hour) between sessions. Using a higher temp (4-5) should be quite safe, but needs watching and it will get it warm -or go a little higher if it doesn’t but be careful on the time, I fried a small bowl that was fairly dry, just wanted to finish drying and i sure did. The big black spot and smokey odor gave it way tooooo much character (ha ha). Anyways, good video, the fast pace works well, the audio is informative and the bowl “turned” out very nice. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Gordon

    • Alan says:

      I afraid that I don’t have the patience to run back to the microwave every 10-15 minutes or so. I’ll stick to the old standby of putting them in the paper bag.
      At least then, I’ll get a new surprise when I open them up again in a few months (or years). It was worth a try. Patience is still a virtue. 🙂