Blank optimization

[Gord Cameron]

I would benefit from some ideas on the best use of four cherry blanks. They are 15” square and 3” thick, all heartwood, well-dried.

It seems a bit wasteful to make platters out of 3” thick blanks, but can a 15” bowl be only 3” deep and be in proportion? An option is to slice the blanks to make 15” x 1.5” blanks for platters, so a question is whether a 1.5” blank is thick enough for such a wide platter. (I have made 12” platters from 1.25” blanks, but 15” seems a lot bigger.)

The easy solution is to chop each blank into four and make 7.5”x3” bowls, but I would feel like I was losing something by not taking advantage of the big blanks.

Thanks.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

I turn big dry blocks whenever I can get them, so if you lived in Ottawa, Illinois instead of Ontario, I'd drive down and buy one from you.

Those blanks will give you a lot room to work, and you needn't treat them all the same. You could resaw one for platters and another for four smaller bowls and a third for a large bowl.

To address your question about proportions here is what I do. On graph paper I mark out a rectangle the width and thickness of the blank, then within that rectangle I sketch different profiles. I am sure that you would find one or more profiles for a large bowl that you would find pleasing. And remember, it's OK to make a 14" bowl out of a 15" blank.

One caveat you may already know. Wet and dry are relative terms. Although "dry", a block that big is probably not going to have uniform moisture content throughout. It won't be "wet" inside, but it may be "moist". So if your going to expose new endgrain (cutting a blank into 4) you may want to seal the newly exposed endgrain to prevent cracking. Also, I will often see some movement between turning the outside and inside, so I turn the outside first then try not to go back.

 

[hockenbery]

If you want to try something different a you can make four 7+ diameter seed jars or one 14+ diameter one
These are fun, make great canvases These are split hollow-forms if things go smoothly the 7” can be done in 20 minutes.

Turning a seed jar - split hollow form

I turned one of these for after dinner entertainment at SWAT-2017 along with Trent Bosch. Trent turned a traditional hollow form in an informal race and finished first. A fun time. Since then I have done several of these in club demos and also did a club workshop where students turned them...

www.aawforum.org

Cherry - sand carved feather pattern
Red gum eucalyptus natural wood

Platters depending on rim design and whether or not it features a center bowl
Can be done nice in a 3” thickness or 1.5”. Or 1.25 and 1.75

1.5” is a good thickness for a square platter.

Cherry works great with milkpaint

 

[Richard Coers]

If you don't want the large diameter, swap with another turner that has smaller blanks. As they say, this stuff grows on trees! But for me, I'd shoot for one big bowl, then core it for at least one other, maybe two.

 

[Marvin Jones]

I"m no expert, just a hobby turner with an opinion. When I first got my big lathe, I roughed in big deep bowls as I turn green wood. Now when I second turn those old blanks, I usually lower the height, I find lower edge bowls more pleasing to the eye and to the wife more useful most of the time.

I guess I'm more into the utilitarian type bowls 90 per cent of the time but on occasion a piece of wood says give me a tiny base and a tall, round figure...

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Gord nice grained wood that is dry is a good piece for a platter- plate, and yes good dry big blanks are harder to come by, use it well.

If you are able to re-saw those blanks, then you would have some perfect platter blanks, I have turned enough plates and platters and they seldom are higher than 1,5 " though some are with a upstanding rim.

Here are some that are near 20" and not thicker than 1.5" (4cm) and some just 1"

To turn the thinner or warped rough turned ones flat, I sometimes glue a block to back side after rounding and flattening the platter, that way I do not need to use a thicker blank for a tenon or recess, pictures of some of my pieces that are certainly worth to keep them full size IMO ;-))

 

[odie]

That walnut crotch is outstanding @Leo Van Der Loo ...

@Gord Cameron ....The answer is "yes" to make a bowl from a 3" x 15" blank. The trick to make it look like a bowl, and not a platter, is to do an undercut rim. 3" thick is about the minimum height to do an undercut rim, but you can make a bowl from a 2" thick blank by making it an inward slanting rim. (Any thinner than 2", and there's not much you can do to keep it from falling into a platter category.) It's all about optics, rather than a technical definition of platter, or bowl...

-----odie-----

 

[robo hippy]

They are not really big enough to take cores from. I don't like to go through the process of gluing up 2 blanks to get a 6 inch deep blank and then core because the glue line would be off center on the cores. You could turn a shallow salad bowl and a set of 4 individual bowls, or 8 bowls depending... I would consider them to be almost too thin to get 2 blanks that are 1 1/2 inch thick for platters, but it could be done.

robo hippy

 

[Gord Cameron]

Thanks for the input, that is what I needed. Leo's platters are inspiring and the glue block idea should be good to help me make the most of a 1-1/2" platter blank. Odie's observation about the undercut rim reminded me of a wide / shallow bowl I have heard of, sometimes called an "arlo bowl", and my blanks would work well for that. Here is an image I found:

 

[Larry Copas]

Perfect size for stools!

 

[John Snow]

... but can a 15” bowl be only 3” deep and be in proportion?
.

Proportion is in the eye of the beholder. If you like the way it looks, it's in proportion. Sure, there are generally accepted ideas of attractive shapes, but if artists stick to only tried-and-true solutions we would never get Picassos, Van Goghs, Brancusis, etc.

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

A friend of mine adds a segmented accent ring on flatter bowls to make them taller.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Every piece of wood is like a blank canvas, study the wood grain and imagine a piece that will complement the color & grain.
Having larger dimension dry blanks will have a purpose when the time is right, you could also cut them into spindle blanks
for salt & pepper mills and various other projects when they come along. Adding wood to your stash is also an option, you
can never have too much wood. A good variety of wood species and wood blank sizes will increase the number of items you
can turn when the time is right.