This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was our Annual General Meeting. In addition, we also had a report on our nesting box project, a Show and Tell, a Q & A session and a draw for a set of Sorby woodturning tools!

The meeting got off to a quick start with reviews of the year-end and financial reports. This was followed by the executive nominations and approvals. Finally, the proposed changes to our By-laws were voted on and accepted.

The AGM portion of the meeting only took about a half hour (gotta like it! ) which allowed lots of time for other things including Show and Tell which there were several pieces brought in for.

Here’s a turned bowl that was made out a 3/4″ thick piece of wood. Circles were scroll sawed on an angled, refitted, glued and then turned:

Continue reading 'The AWA Annual General Meeting'

Here’s the Calabash bowl that I made at the seminar with Mike Mahoney that I attended a few weeks ago.

A Calabash bowl is of African descent and was originally made from Calabash gourds. Today it refers to any round bottomed bowl.

This Calabash bowl is made of Poplar and is around 8″ in diameter and just over 3″ tall. It was finished with a good soaking of Walnut Oil and then when dried it was lightly sanded and soaked again with Walnut Oil. This gave the usual almost white color of the Poplar to take on a mellow yellowish hue.

Because it is made of Poplar the bowl is very light and because it has a round bottom the bowl can be easily rocked but it always rights itself, sort of like a Weeble.

Here are some more photos:

Continue reading 'A Calabash Bowl Made Of Poplar'

I recently had the opportunity to attend a seminar with renowned bowl maker, Mike Mahoney. Mike has been a professional woodturner since 1989 and he specializes in utility items such as salad bowls, plates, and platters. He also creates, and is rightfully identified with, beautiful screw-top urns and natural-edge nesting bowls.

This one day seminar on green bowl turning was part of the Celebrating Woodturning In Nova Scotia week, hosted by Lee Valley in conjunction with the Nova Woodturners Guild.

The project that was planned for the day was a Calabash bowl turned from green Poplar. We got off on a bit of a late start (Mike was grounded in Newark the night before because of an East Coast storm – surprise, surprise so the class started a few hours later than scheduled) but once it began it was like ‘all get out’.

Mike started with a brief introduction of himself and then showed and explained a few examples of his work:

Continue reading 'A Day With Bowl Turner Mike Mahoney'

Here’s a project that I had in my head for quite some time and I was finally inspired to make it for the recent Nova Woodturners Woodturning Competition. I call it ‘Peyoke Medicine Bowl’.

The Peyoke Medicine Bowl is a tribal mortar and pestle. A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind and mix, in this case, medicinal herbs and plants. The mortar, which is almost 6″ in diameter and 3″ tall, is the bowl and the pestle, which is just over 5″ long and 1 1/2″ thick at it’s widest, is the bat-shaped stick that is used for grinding and pounding the herbs and plants in the dish of the mortar, creating either a powder or paste that would be used as herbal remedies.

To aid in holding, both the mortar and pestle have been textured by burning. For the appearance of frequent use over the course of generations these areas have been hand stained to a warm, brown, contrasting with the original Maple.

Here are a few more photos of the Peyoke Medicine Bowl:

Continue reading 'The Peyoke Medicine Bowl'