Rough turning the huge yew bowl

On my last blog post, I’d just finished chainsawing a rather large yew bowl blank ready for rough turning. It now needs to be prepared for mounting onto the lathe.

I start by grinding off a recess to accept a large faceplate. This has to be fastned very securely, since the blank is very heavy.

The faceplate mounted – with plenty of screws! It will take two people to lift it onto the lathe.

Mounted onto the lathe. It looks a bit imposing and will need to be turned very slow!

Rough turning the outside. I’m using a 0.75” bowl gouge to remove the bulk of the timber. The final shaping is done with 0.5” bowl gouge. I’ve turned the base flat to accept the same faceplate – it’s far too big to fit on a chuck.

Here I'm using the Rolly Munro hollowing tool to reach inside the bowl. I could really benefit from using a deep hollowing tool rest and may buy one in the future.

The rough turned yew blank. A piece this size will take a good two years to dry out.