Keeping The Bark On a Live
Or Natural Edge Bowl

I wanted to turn a live edge bowl or as some call it a natural edge bowl. That would be a bowl with a bark edge or natural edge of the piece of wood for the top edge of the bowl. This is one woodturning project that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time!

I experimented with a piece of Maple that someone dropped off for firewood. I burn all kinds of wood, anything really, in my wood stove and that’s how we heat our house for the winter. Been doing that for 30 some years now.

Natural Beauty of A Natural Edge Bowl

The funny part is both my wife and I will always look at a piece of wood and wonder what’s inside, what does it look like. Only recently did I get a Laguna 14″ SUV bandsaw with enough horsepower to rip throough some of the wood, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from dragging all the firewood into the shop to cut it open. It’s kind of like a God secret. Looks like firewood from the outside but underneath all that is a diamond worth shining and keeping.

This led me to desire 2 different types of machines to work with wood. I really want one of those portable bandsaws that allows you to cut a log into useable lumber. Same thing, rip open a log and it’s like a piece of heaven.

Haven’t gotten the portable bandsaw yet, but I did get a wood lathe. Which was next on my list of desired woodworking toys …I mean tools 🙂

Getting Started In Woodturing

I’m not sure how or why I got interested in turning wood, I haven’t been a woodturner since highschool and I barely remember that. I don’t think I even read anything about woodturning. Maybe I watched a youtube video or something. Whatever it was, I caught the woodturning bug!

Big problem though, I was …stil am, pretty broke from being sick for a long time. I couldn’t afford a $1000 for a lathe, much less $4000 or $5000 for a good lathe.

I went the China route. Got some basic equipment from harbor freight, just had the lathe and some HF woodturning tools. I had a faceplate and centers that came with the lathe. That’s basically how I started and learned woodturning.

Live Edge Bowl Experiment

Sorry, not sure how I fell down that rabbit hole. I really just wanted to share some quick facts and pictures of doing a live edge and the experiment I did to keep the bark in place.

First mistake I made was I used a faceplate on the wrong end and I ended up with screw holes in my live edge bowl. I’m really getting tired of screw holes showing up in my projects, not sure why I can’t keep that part of it straight 🙂

Anyway, I cut a round blank from the maple log and mounted it on my large faceplate. It was a pretty big piece, as big as my lathe could handle, about 12″. It really helped using the circle jig on the bandsaw to cut the blank round and allowed me to make the biggest bowl possible. And….the lathe didn’t walk across the floor 🙂 I really need to show you a picture of this circle jig for the bandsaw, like most things I do …. it was a quick bugger job, but it works perfectly!

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I had some new woodturning tools I was trying and the project took shape fast. My natural edge bowl was starting to take shape. Then it happened. Totally my fault, I stuck my Sorby bowl gouge a little too hard into the live edge, that is the bark, and a huge piece went flying! Man, I was so disappointed. Everything was going so good and the bowl actually looked great. Now it was missing a huge piece of bark.

Well, I didn’t swear. I prayed that I might find the piece of bark and God answered that prayer because I found it immediately! Normally, I would have cussed up a storm and thrown some tools around and maybe even kicked the lathe ….yep, I have a little bit of a temper. Guess they call that “Anger Problem” these days 🙂

Another Bowl Turning Experiment
With A Live Edge Bowl

I found the piece of bark and figured this was going to be another one of my experiments because I never saw anyone attempt to repair a live edge or natural edge bowl and then finish turning it. I’ve seen some woodturners attempt to do a natural edge bowl and have the bark fly off …at that point they trash the project or just turn a regular bowl.

Repair Of A Natural Edge Bowl

I took the piece of bark that broke off and epoxied it to the bowl edge. I used a 30 minute 2 ton epoxy and let it dry overnight. I figured the real test would be if I could finish turning the rough out of the bowl. After 24 hours I turned on the lathe and bravely stuck my round insert carbide homemade turning tool into the spinning bowl, slowly, every so slowly it started to cut the bowl and bark.

Much to my surprise the piece I epoxied in place held fast. I was able to turn the bowl and finsh the rough out of the natural edge maple bowl. However, the bark was coming loose in some other areas and it looked like it wasn’t going to stay on.

I should have tossed it at this point, but I enjoy fixing things and doing things that others won’t do. So I thought about the different ways I might keep the bark on. I saw one guy use 2 ouces of CA glue and that worked, a little expensive I thought. This wasn’t a special piece of wood and I did not want to waste my CA glue on the bark of a maple bowl.

Alumilite Epoxy Finish

Then I remember seeing someone use “alumilite” to coat a big bowl for a sink. Then he used it for some of his other bowls for a nice glossy finish. Looked like some awesome stuff to finish woodturing projects with, but I found out latter that it required some special effort and there was definitely a learning curve if you wanted a perfect finish.

I purchased some epoxy resin called Max Clear, similar to alumilite from Amazon. I applied a good thick coat to the bark and an inch inside and outside the bowl. The thought was to use the epoxy to hold everything together, that is to keep the bark from seperating and when the bowl was to be finish turned ….hopefully the narrow live edge would hold and keep the bark in place. At this point I was thinking that I would epoxy the entire bowl after the final turning of the live edge bowl.

Epoxied Live Edge Bowl Sat For a While

My natural edge bowl project ended up sitting for longer that I planned. The bark edge along with a small part of the inside and outside top of the bowl was epoxied and thoroughly cured. However, it was wet wood when I started and it moved pretty good with the grain as it dried over a couple of weeks, so it was a bit oblong . My bad….I should have stuck it in a bag of shavings …but, that’s my life. I get sick and sometimes can’t make it out to the shop for days or weeks…sometimes a couple of months. The bowl still had the recess for the Nova Chuck ****** although a little out of whack, I was able to chuck it back up to the lathe.

The bowl didn’t crack though, and the bark was nice and glossy. I chucked up the bowl and started gouging out the inside. I really wanted a live edge bowl, a thin live edge bowl. I wanted to get the sides and bottom down to a 1/4″ or so. This was an experiment so I didn’t care what happened, if it exploded…so be it!  I thought for sure the bark would fly off and the bowl would crack.

Epoxied Natural Edge Bark
Bowl Held Together

Much to my surprise, as I pushed the 5/8″ bowl gouge  into the bowl, the bark held together! In fact, I used a couple of different tools to shape the natural bark edge of the bowl. I used the big 1 1/2″ scarpaer, the small 3/4″ scraper and the round carbide insert scarper tool. As I shaped the inside of the bowl the bark stuck togeher perfectly. Then I went to the outside and had to really rework the outside of the bowl because of the shrinkage, and once again the bark of the natural edge maple bowl help together perfectly!

This scraper can give you confidence, just enter the wood slowly and make gentle movements and you can clean up just about anything or even shape the entire bowl. Great for newbie and expert alike! I always turn to this big piece of metal when I’m not sure of using the bowl gouge and don’t want to screw something up 🙂

Not a piece of bark fell off the bowl. I got the top of the bowl thinned down to 3/8″ or so, I was OK with that. I tried to do some shaving cuts on both outside and inside. That worked out good, in fact the project was a huge success!

Then it happened!

Live Edge Bowl Disaster!

I had the speed up. I’m still a little paranoid with high speeds on the lathe. I feel like I need one of those bubble suits 🙂 I wanted to see if I could clean up the bark edge of my live edge bowl so I grabbed my bowl gouge ****** with the ellsworth grind, really need the practice with this, and I clumsily jabbed at the turning bowl! To my horror, I saw pieces flying! My project, almost a perfect natural edge bowl ….finished for all intensive purposes was getting destroyed because I was being anal. This time I swore, threw stuff, and kicked stuff…. hurt my toe with the ingrown toenail. I was so so so so pissed at myself! Why couldn’t I just leave well enough alone 🙁

But….

Natural Edge Bowl Saved From Disaster!

I must have been seeing things because the bark was all there except for a tiny, maybe 1/4″ piece that was missing. I thanked God for saving my bowl and asked for forgiveness for being such a jerk 🙂 At this point it was about 3 am. I should have quit at aleast an hour ago, but I was having fun making shavings, turning a bowl and experimenting on how to save a live edge bowl. Yep, I was really enjoying making a mess of things, fixing things, making some shavings and doing some sanding.

I sanded my bowl down to about 600 grit usinng a 2″ disk sander ****** with velcro sanding pads. They don’t last too long but I tried to use a piece of sand paper and the live edge almost took my hand off. Tried sandpaper again, worked for a while but anytime I got next to that live edge or natural edge of the bowl, the bark would grab the paper and rip it from my hands and almost take my hand along with it.

So I used the 2″ sanding pad on my electric drill. Tried it first on my cordless drill, but didn’t feel right and I really don’t want to burn up my DeWalt cordless drills, so I used an electric drill. Beware, caution …..using a corded drill is dangerous when you are around the lathe. Any mishap could cause the drill to get caught in the lathe and make a mess of everything including you!

Sanding A Live Edge Wood Bowl

So, I sanded the natural edge maple bowl starting with 80 grit down to 600 grit. The paper got ripped up when I got next to the bark edge but it worked on the rest of the bowl and to sand down to 600 grit for me is a milestone. I hate sanding, but….. sanding makes the finshe. Ask Cap’n Eddie about sanding. He preaches the need to sand down to 1000 or so and says you just got to do it, otherwise you will have an ameture finish on your bowls and woodturning projects.

How To Finish a
Natural Edge Wood Bowl

Maybe I should say, what kind of finish should I put on my live edge wood bowl. Remember the bark already is finished with Max Clear epoxy resin, similar to alumilite. So, the bark is glossy. I originally thought I would use the epoxy on the entire bowl, however, after using it on another project I can see that it requires some thought, effort and work to look good. This is the stuff that is put on table tops or bar tops and people will inlay pictures, shells or other objects and put multiple layers of epoxy over it.

After thinking about it, I thought I would save my epoxy finish for a special project. In fact, the stuff I have is food safe. It could be used for cups, bowls or mugs. Although this bowl is turning out nice, not sure I want to put in the effort to finish it with epoxy.

So…..

So, I decided since I sanded it down to 600grit, filled all the screw holes and had my life edge bowl looking pretty good. I thought I would use my “Salad Bowl Finish” by General Finishes. I really love this stuff. First of all, it’s advertised as being “food safe”, and although I have said it multiple times before, I’ll say it again. I think all finishes are food safe as long as you allow he finish to “cure” not “dry” but cure. That means the chemical processes are complete. But you do what you feel comfortable with.

I like the “Salad Bowl Finish” because you can apply it to the project while on the lathe and you can spin the project and use a wadded up paper towel to push the finish into the wood and to buff it. I found that you could get away with one coat on some woods and up to 3 coats with others. I think this live edge maple bowl will require 3 coats, the end grain seems to soak up the finish as fast as I put it on, but after one coat it might just seal the bowl and allow the other coats to build up and protect the bowl.

I’ve almost been using the salad bowl finish exclusively on my bowls. It looks great, builds up and has a shiney luster to it …and as they say, it’s food safe.

Some of my bowls I applied “ob shine juice” as a finish, a couple of coats. I’ve also used straight clear shellace and on a couple I’ve applied a sanding sealer first, you need to find a “clear” sanding sealer and then I have applied the “salad bowl finish” over these. So far, the finishes have all worked out great, applying the sanding sealer or ob shine juice keeps the salad bowl finish from soaking into the wood and allows you to get away with 1 or 2 coats of “salad bowl finsh”. At least that’s what I found!

So, up to this point I have one coat of salad bowl finish over the bare wood. I think for the live edge bowl, I’ll end up with at least 3 coats of “salad bowl finsh” and then, it will be ready for a Christmas Gift!!!++++++

Natural Edge Bowl Redone

Looking back, my biggest mistake was the way I attached the bowl blank to the lathe. I used a faceplate on the flat surface of the log. I should have used the worm screw and mounted the log with the bark facing the lathe motor and attached with the worm screw. Or, I could have flattened out a spot to attach a smaller faceplate to the bark side of the log. Or, I might have been able to use a forstner bit to drill a recess for the Nova Chuck in the bark side.

Once attached I could turn between centers and cut a tenon or recess on the flat side of the log. Come to think of it, I probably should have just drilled a 2″ recess on the flat side and mounted it in the chuck and that would have been the bottom of the bowl.

I guess there are many different ways to approach a project, you need to do what works for you. Do what you feel safe with and then experiment a little!

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