If you happen to have technical difficulties, this video is also posted on YouTube and FaceBook. But it is best right here.

One of my clubs has a wood exchange – a frequent source of interesting wood. In this case the wood is aspen with a weathered bark edge. While it is on the smaller side, I found it interesting due to the weathered edge. I could have proceeded to turn a bowl in the usual process. But, in this case, I want to preserve the weathered look which would have otherwise be turned away.

Most of the time when turning a bowl, the first task is to turn a tenon on the rounded side. However, this would destroy the natural weathered side. I had to come up with another plan to be mount the wood for turning.

Instead of a tenon that chuck jaws can clamp onto, I can drill a mortise that the chuck jaws can expand into. A tenon cuts away a lot of the beautiful wood to form the tenon; a mortise can be a simple moderate size hole that removes only a little weathered wood. The offset is that a mortise risks cracking the wood if there is too little wood around the hole.

There are other smaller differences that you will see in this video.

The bowl is from dry aspen, about seven inches diameter and finished with walnut oil.

Enjoy.

p.s. Would you like a more in depth demonstration? Please contact me for an IRD (Zoom Demo) on this or other topics.