Gary Beasley

From personal experience the lathe will need space around it to clean up the shavings, even with just spindle turning it gets messy fast. A dust collector is generally useful only during the sanding as the chips fly faster and farther than a collection nozzle can catch.

Its going to be pricey whatever form it gets to the market in. Hope they can make it competitive with Sawstop. Looks like they are intent on building a wholly automated control system for the saw at top end, servo controlled lift and angle would be great for a commercial operation.

Looking at the picture the first problem is leaving the pith on the bowl. This is the epicenter for cracking and keeps the wood from relieving the drying stresses without splitting. The house paint is another thing I would not use, acrylic paint will pass moisture fairly easy. The point behind the bagging is to keep the moisture gradient through the wood fairly even. You may have to change the bags out often to prevent mold but you do what it needs done. If the outside of the wood dries too fast and shrinks on to the inside splitting is how it balances the forces. Good luck on your next bowl, may it make something nice.

One thing Ive learned about sweetgum is it spalts beautifully.

Sweetgum is one of those woods that move in bad ways as it dries. Ask Spanky what happened to the last batch he worked on.

What kind of paint was that? Waterbase acrylic? Would have been better to simply bag the rough turned blank until it was dry enough.

Wouldnt you like one of his logs to turn?

Glenn Lucas, a demonstrator from Ireland I got to know from the Dalton symposium a few year back has gotten some milling equipment and sent us a video.

You might want to look at pyrography, a bit easier than carving and just as permanent. If you really want to get fancy take a piece of wood to a trophy shop or anybody else with a laser engraver and have it burned into the wood. Then you can inset it into the lid or if you are not so far along take a part of the lid before assembly and have it done.

Somebody step on that one?

So whats your opinion on flatsawn vs quartersawn? Was there a reason besides looks that people started doing it?

Good read though it really doesnt get in depth about the causes.

Pretty cool, almost looks like it would make a good wine rack.

Isnt it the tannins that darken with age?

You could possibly darken the cherry before finishing by fuming it with ammonia. This artificially ages the wood so if you get a color match with the older wood it should stay fairly close as it ages.