Last April I roughed out a bowl from a hunk of Chinese Elm. It was from a tree planted in my late grandfather’s yard, planted there by either his father or his uncle, accounts vary a little. I roughed out about a dozen blanks at that time, but the one documented there was by far the biggest.
The blanks warp as they dry (or there is some other way of doing it that I haven’t learned about yet) and so they are left a little thick and heavy so that once dry they can be gotten back to round and finished.
I started with the smaller ones and left this beast for last. That turned out to be smart because finishing off a blank that isn’t anywhere near round turns out to be a different skill than anything I had done before. Some of the blanks turned back into firewood on account of my lack of skillfulness.
But it’s finished now, wrapped up on Jan 1, 2011.
