Click on the video below to see a bowl being turned ...
The bowl blank, which has been roughly cut to the right shape with a chainsaw, is mounted onto a spiked mandrel with a sharp tap of the hammer.
The blank is mounted between the poppits on the lathe from which short iron spikes project. Great care is needed at this point to ensure it is mounted centrally.
Once centred, the drive cord is wrapped twice around the mandrel and the outside of the bowl is shaped with a hook tool.
The blank is removed from the lathe and reversed to enable the inside to be shaped. The long, curved tools I use enable me to cut the inside of the bowl to within an inch of the base, retaining the core intact to be remounted and turned into further bowls.
The core is snapped out and the very bottom of the bowl is smoothed using a specially-designed curved knife. Finally, the small piece of end waste is removed from the base with an axe.
The core is re-mounted on the lathe and the process started again until the nest is completed.
