Hand carved wood bowl work in progress--Title cherry bowl by Steve Schmeck

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- The Carving Process -

'Cherry Delight' - Carved Cherry Bowl
by Steve Schmeck

I began this bowl on December 1st, 2024 by sawing down a large black cherry tree that was in the way of an even larger, diseased white birch that I plan on taking down next spring. The cherry was about 18" in diameter at the trunk; I cut this piece at a point about 25 feet from the trunk. It was approximately 12" in diameter and 18" long and when split in half weighed just under 35 pounds.

I've documented the carving process below.

The Carving
Process...

Rough half-log (Fresh-cut, wet and heavy) 12/6/2024
Roughing ... (Flattening off the bottom) 12/6/2024
Finding a bowl (Locating the bowl - with some sap-wood on the outside edges.) 12/8/2024
Finding foot locations (Looks like it will have three feet on quite short legs.) 12/9/2024
Shaping the bottom (All gouge work for a while) 12/10/2024
More bowl-like ... (I've marked the rim about 1/2" thick. When done it should be about 5/16". Right now it is a wooden bowl full of ... wood.) 12/12/2024
Bottom shaped (About as far as I can go with the bowl this green & wet.) 12/12/2024
Holding fixture (Screwed into the bottoms of the feet) 12/12/2024
Beginning hollowing (A lot of gouge work yet to do but it is beginning to look more like a bowl.) 12/13/2024
Chip by chip ... (The bowl is mostly about 1/2" thick now.) 12/14/2024
Thinning ... (The bowl is mostly around 3/8" so now I need to be quite careful while shaving and scraping. That hook-shaped scraper is the main tool for this phase.) 12/17/2024
The video on the right shows how I'm carefully thinning down the bowl. I'm using a modified gooseneck scraper. At this point I'm aiming for ~5/16" thickness.
Well, it is getting closer to how thin I want it. Probably is between 5/16" and 3/8" and that should give me room to complete the final shaping and sanding without getting too thin. I kind of like it the way it has come along and will finish it simply. If it needs any decorative work I can do that later.
Sanding stage! I'm refining the shape of the feet and will work on the rim next. Down to 220-grit sandpaper right now, heading to 400-grit. The bowl weighs only 18 oz. now so it has lost around 34 lbs. so far. 1/3/2025

The first bowl of 2025 is done! It went pretty quickly as these things go and turned out just fine with me. Over the next few weeks I'll add several more applications of 100% pure tung oil, sanding with 400-800 grit sandpaper after each coating. 1/8/2025
(You can click on any of these final four photos to see a larger image.) Use your 'BACK' button to return.
...
As you can see, this cherry piece has quite a bit of character. I wanted it to have short legs but I cut it a little close. The leather foot pads raise the bowl some but there is only about 1mm clearance under the middle. Overall the bowl feels nice and I'm looking forward to carving more this winter.

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Photos and larger images of some of the bowls I have carved over the years.