Purple Heart Bowl

Ever since i got an interest in woodworking I've had an interest in the exotic woods, don't know why probably cause they can be damn expensive and i cant afford many of them :D

What started out as my favourite and the most interesting wood to me was Purple Heart, an 8" x 3" bowl blank will set you back somewhere between €30 to €40 in Ireland anyway. I bought one piece around the same time i bought my lathe and was afraid to use in for fear of destroying it and turning it into firewood, although i would of felt quite rich being able to use purple heart to warm my living room :D





I eventually thought I'd developed enough basic skill on the lathe to chance turning this piece, it was easily the largest piece i had tried to turn but i had fun turning it.

I had no idea what shape i wanted on it, what sort of base either so i just took the tools to the wood and kept turning till i was happy with it.

Now one thing i will point out here that came quite apparent when i started taking shavings off this wood was the smell of it, i usually love the small of ALL woods when you're turning but this turned my stomach, i turned this bowl about 6 months ago and i have it wrapped up in bubble wrap in the utility room still because of the smell that's still comes off it, i might just have been unlucky with the piece but it has put me off ever working with Purpelheart again... bar a couple of purple heart pens that i have done since.

But anyway back to the turning, i mounted the piece with a screw chuck to initially round over the piece and to work on the base of the bowl, i got fancy and put a bit of a design where i was going to mount it with the chuck, nothing TOO fancy just something different to a flat void where the chuck goes.




After completing this i mounted the piece on my chuck and continued to turn the outside and inside of the bowl till i got to a shape i liked which ended up being a conical concave outside type shape with a small lip at the base, this gives it the look that it's slightly raised off the table. I finished it by placing placing a small indent around the outside edge with a parting tool and sanded the whole piece through the grits from 150, 180, 240, 320, 400, 600 and then burnished it with its own shavings, this might of been overkill but i ended up with a really smooth surface. I finished the piece using Myranda Traditional Wax Polish which brought out the colour and grain of this piece nicely.

In the end i was quite happy with only my 3rd ever bowl on such a nice wood (forgetting about the smell) :D

Also i would point out that i wore a mask and face shield at all time while turning and sanding as exotic woods are more inclinded to cause skin/respiratory problems then native woods. as in yew being poisonous and walnut tends to bring on dermatitis for example.Thats not to say you shouldn't wear these while dealing with native woods!!

Here's some more pics of the finished piece:

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