Welcome to Fairweather Woodworking. I'm Steve, and I enjoy wood turning.
As a retired forest biometrician, I really enjoy this "hands on" work with wood, a beautiful renewable natural resource.
I started turning in 2020, learning all I could from YouTube videos and trial and error.
I started with a small table top lathe and used carbide tipped tools. I now use a combination of traditional gouges and and the carbide tip tools.
My shop is in the garage, and includes a table saw, grinding wheel, bandsaw, drill press, planer, and sawdust collection system. And a lot of clamps.
I'm a member of the American Association of Woodturners, and the Southwest Washington Chapter of the AAW. Seeing demonstrations in person and talking with other woodturners has been very helpful.
I turn both natural bowls, from a single block of wood, and segmented bowls, which can include several species and feature some intricate patterns. I've used juniper, Oregon white oak, red oak, sugar maple, box elder, bigleaf maple, norway maple, padauk, rosewood, purpleheart, walnut, black cherry, mahogany, and yellow wood.
Natural bowls can include live-edge bowls, and bowls from tree burls, which usually exhibit some amazing colors and shapes.
Sometimes I'll combine segments with a natural bowl. Here we have a ring of sugar maple and rosewood on a walnut base.
The "Bowl From a Board" is another category.
We start with a single flat board, which can either be of a single species, or a mix of species which have been glued together.
Concentric rings are cut out of the board at an angle, such that they can be flipped and stacked to form a rough bowl.
The rough bowl is then put on the lathe and shaped.
On the bottom of every bowl is my logo, an old-time log measuring tool called a wheeled caliper.
I also include my initials and the year the bowl was completed.
Bowls have gone as gifts to family and friends and people important to me. I'm happy to donate bowls to auctions raising money for worthwhile causes, and I'm also willing to sell a bowl for a fair price.
