With the clear blue sky and the midday temperature at 20degC it’s easy to forget that only 3 weeks ago it was snowing briefly, and it’s not too late for some more with the topsy turvy weather we can have nowadays. Sod’s law that was the day that I’d arranged for Eva to come round and turn her bowl.
I saw ‘her’ bowl because there has never really been any doubt about it, not in Eva’s mind at least. Minor issues such as never having turned wood before didn’t really figure and nor did the weather. My patronising ‘wouldn’t you rather start by turning a dibber’ was quite rightly brushed off with the chant ‘I want to turn a bowl’. And she did – well done Eva!
The more I thought about it the more I realised I was equally interested to see how well Eva got on with turning a bowl on a polelathe without the distraction of turning any spindles first. There is a lot to learn but by keeping to a small bowl diameter and shallow dish profile the inertia of the wood on the lathe is minimised and so is the amount of wood to be removed. Despite the near freezing temperatures and short snow shower the result turned out well and the exercise turned out useful for keeping warm as well.
While Eva was turning the bowl Gary and I made spoons. Gary is used to precision engineering tools so wielding a knife freehand was an entirely new experience. Gary’s precision engineering is going to come in handy because I can’t see Eva being satisfied with just one bowl and I don’t think it won’t be long before she has her own lathe.
