The process for turning trees into “functional art” can be quite long.  For those of you interested, I’ve provided an explanation of the process used to acquire, prepare and finalize the wood products you’ll see on my other web pages.

The first step is to find the wood, which I do through word of mouth or just seeing trees that have been taken down or about to be removed.  Having contacts in the woodturning clubs is also a big help in finding wood.  Every person who provides wood to me gets a hand crafted item in return at no expense just for letting me have some of the tree. My favorite wood being big leaf maple which is found abundantly here in the NW and because of the diversity of colors and textures in the wood.

Once the tree is cut into manageable logs, the ends of the wood get coated with a wood sealer and and then stored until I have time to cut into workable sizes. The ends are sealed to help prevent cracking as trees will lose moisture more quickly from the end grain and make the wood unsatisfactory for wood turning. My “raw inventory” looks like “firewood” but I like to think of it as “treasures” looking for an escape from it’s natural form.

Chainsaw Larry

The next step is to cut the pieces into workable “chunks” which is done by chain saw. If I still don’t have time to work the wood, it gets sealed again and dated so I know how long it’s been drying. Big leaf maple dries about 1 inch of thickness every three to four months of drying time.

Once I’m ready to begin working the wood, it gets cut into “round” on the band saw or if it’s too big for the band saw I do as good a job as I can with the chain saw. The sample in the picture to the right was done with the chain saw, which was for a large salad bowl – about 20 inches in diameter, 10 inches deep and weighed over 40 pounds in the raw form (it was for a large family).

Unless the wood has been sealed long enough to be thoroughly dry, it’s still not ready to finish, so it gets turned to a rough shape, sealed, dated again and then goes into the “drying” area where it sits until I can finish it into final form. While drying and depending on the type of wood it can change shape significantly (warp); therefore, the rough turned object is left at least 10% thickness of the diameter (i.e. a ten inch diameter bowl would be left with a one inch thick wall) so that when the wood is finally stable any warping can be turned out and it will be totally round.

Every piece gets sanded at least to 300 grit and the artistic pieces usually to 600 or 800 grit, which leaves a very smooth finish. Then depending on its use, gets one of the following sealers:

• If it’s going to be used with food, it gets a coat of butcher block oil, walnut oil, cut deft, or other food safe finish on the inside where food will come into contact, as well as on the outside.  The outside then receives a three wheel buffing using three different compounds which result in a slightly glossy finish.
• For decorative pieces it gets a coat of shellac as a sanding sealer followed by either several coats of wipe on polyurethane or metal flake automative lacquer, that is buffed with 0000 steel wool between coats and then gets buffed three times using a different compound for each buffing.
• Because I’ve had so many requests for my vases to be able to hold water, I’ve started sealing the inside of some of them with a System 3 marine epoxy; whereas those without this sealer are used for dry flowers.
• I also make some items that are translucent when held up to the light.  This feature is created by soaking the item in a mixture of urethane, mineral spirits and linseed oil for up to a week and then air dried for up to a month before getting the final finish.

All of my work gets signed, dated, and marked with the type of wood from which it was made.

I hope you enjoyed the explanation of the process. As you see it can take several months from time the tree is cut to finished product, but this process results in beautiful pieces that will last generations. In fact my mother recently returned a bowl to me that I did for her in high school about 50 years ago and it’s still in perfect condition.  Admittedly it’s pretty ugly but what do you expect for the first bowl ever made by a 15 year old?

If you have questions on the process feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to answer any questions or just discuss woodturning with you.