Monday, April 2, 2012

Warped - but not just me this time

The last few woodturning classes - we're now learning bowls. On 24 March, we turned green (fresh) maple blanks. After class, we were told to put the green bowls in a paper bag covered with their own shavings, to help them dry more slowly. Mine sat for a week. When I opened the bag again, the bowl had dried nicely, but had warped into a slight oblong shape... it was 1/4" wider along the grain line axis! That meant it could definitely not go back on the lathe. I ended up sanding the outside of it with the ROS, and leaving the bottom tenon as a "foot" for the bowl.

Green maple bowl - still a bit rough outside, but looks like a bowl, right?

The bottom - you can definitely see the warping (longer right to left).
But - after sanding and some butcher block oil, it looks fine for a first attempt.

In the 31 March class, our sub instructor, Matt, gave us some walnut to work on. Here I did a bit better... and finished the bowl in class, so I wouldn't have to worry about warping later. This is the little walnut bowl, also with a coat of butcher block oil.

Small walnut bowl (5-5/8" x 1-3/4")
Small walnut bowl
Last week's running was pretty good - nice mornings. Saturday and Sunday were a bit of a challenge... Saturday because I didn't go out until mid-afternoon, after turning class, and Sunday because it's just not right to have 80F + days already. I'll have to work on the heat-acclimation stuff. (And hope that it's not in the 90s all summer long!) Plus, I admitted that two pairs of shoes were past their use-by date, and were causing left achilles problems. On to new shoes.

Tuesday: 5.5 mi in 1:01:22 (5 mi = 55:44)
Wednesday: 6 mi in 1:07:18 (5 mi = 56:15)
Friday: 5.5 mi in 1:00:49
Saturday: 5.5 mi in 1:02:40 (5 = 57:02)
Sunday: 5.5 mi in 1:04:15 - at CCL. Car said 85F when I left the park.

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