An enquiry to our club website, asked for a member to turn a Mulberry bowl. I have made very few bowls, but as the correspondent lived near to my daughter in Wargrave, Berkshire, I put my hand up. The story was about a mature tree that had become dangerous and been felled a few days before, to the despair of the owner. In a gesture to help alleviate the loss, his wife engaged a neighbour to secretly commission an artefact from the tree’s timber. A simple natural edged bowl was chosen, with the neighbour, Shirley Robinson, asking for a similar item for herself.
Vivid colour of split log
Boring through rough bark for pin-chuck
Initial shaping & creation of dovetail for four inch Axminster chuck
Time was an obvious factor here, so I used the excuse to fulfil a long-held itch to try boiling the timber to reduce shrinkage and the risk of cracking and I hoped to improve upon the usual drying time of several months. Borrowing a large electric tea urn, I split a log in two down the grain and roughed out oval bowls about 12” x 10”, 6” deep, with a wall thickness of about an inch. Surprisingly they actually sank into the boiling water and were ‘cooked’ for an hour and a half. Each one then weighed 3lb 4oz
Before, During, & After Cooking
On very careful removal the original bright orange heartwood had sadly become a dull beige with some parting of the thick rough bark. This was glued back with PVA and secured with the ubiquitous rubber bands cut from car inner tubes. An American article on the subject had recommended drying in ‘Paper Store Sacks’ which we don’t have in the UK, so the bowls were placed in newspaper envelopes instead. A cardboard box with louvres top and bottom warmed by a light bulb below served as my oven. Weight loss was observed at about 2oz a day for 5 days when after remounting, the walls were reduced to about five eighths of an inch with only slight distortion and minor cracking around two branch junctions, which was constantly glued. Left for a further five days, turning was very limited due to the sides moving beyond the parameters of the wall thickness, so power sanding came to my rescue. A scrap timber boss was shaped to match the inside of the bowls and lined with bubble-wrap, to reverse chuck and thus remove the original mounting dovetails. One bowl was left with a small foot to provide a stand whilst the second base was completely rounded.
Improvised ‘Oven’ & Scales
Inner tube bands secure errant bark
Both bowls were given daily applications of finishing oil and consistently lost weight for a further four days, ending at 1lb 10oz each. I had had a zany notion of making replica Mulberry fruit as feet for the second bowl, but various attempts using a Chinese ball style chuck, and even dredging my memory for references to a Buckminster Fullerene layout with paper punch discs brought me only dismal failure. By now the items had regained their exotic orange colouring and I came to realise that they would have great appeal without resorting to such ‘over-egging’, so I turned three three-quarter inch ebony balls using a trusted old iron gas-pipe sharpened around the end. The feet were fitted and everything was given a coat of wax which gave a very pleasing semi-matt result in some fifteen days.
Reverse chucked to shape base
Gas-pipe-sphere-maker
Alternative bases
A brace of bowls
Whereas I had previously thought that Mulberry were not common in this part of the world, I now learn that Queen Elizabeth the First promoted the planting of the trees in the sixteenth century, and that nearby Wokingham was a centre for fine silk stockings with production at the watermill in Twyford, Berkshire, up until 1825. So, the net result of my latest ‘Bulk-shavings-production’ is that I’ve made some folk happy, tried a new fun drying technique, and even added to my knowledge of the history of my local area.
So,..… “Here’s to you Mrs Robinson” …♪…….!