Different Bowls

I got lucky and was given some large pieces of wood, the first was a piece of pohutukawa, this bowl is 270mm wide and 60mm high the blank I was given was much bigger but had a split through it so the easiest way was to put the axe through it and see where the split went, I don't like to waste wood so it told me to leave it square then there was some bits on those wings I wanted to remove so this is where it took me, I have seen this type of design called manta ray as in the swimming stingray type creature, it was a lot of work but worth the effort as it is a nice piece of wood.





The second piece of wood I was given was not so thick but a far bigger diameter, the platter has turned out to be 520 diameter and about43mm high, it was very difficult to sand as it instantly clogged up the sandpaper, that alone should have told me what the wood is the smell was there but I could not believe I would be given such a wonderful piece of kauri, most kauri I have come across has not been so colorful being almost mono colour this piece is different.
There were some voids that became bigger as I dug out the bark or
loose wood then to be filled with epoxy and wood dust so again a while in the making and the biggest piece I have turned.

New Wood

The wood is new to me, it had become too big at the bottom of a neighbors garden, its a Rimu tree and maybe 60 years old and for that kind of tree its young so I don't expect to find any great colour in it, I have been slowly cutting it up and rough turning it I have about 6 pieces turned and in cardboard boxes drying now.
I gained some dry Tawa, nice clean white Tawa, it is 8" X 2" I cut a piece off and turned it into a platter with wings just to see the quality of it, the one on the right is Matai and came from the local beach so a piece of drift wood, all these timbers are native to New Zealand.
I know people like rustic but I also like to achieve a good looking finish to what I turn so I am torn between leaving in the natural flows or trying to produce perfect pieces of wood which is very rare given that wood is so prone to movement, the Matai has some splits while the Tawa is perfect.
I have been working on some bowls I turned wet during the year, the one on the right is Elm Burl and is 8 1/4" diameter, now it is dry it is hard and nice to work with, the back one is Pohutukawa another New Zealand native timber this piece is 10" diameter a few cracks have appeared that I glued up as I went along so there were a few day work involved with this one, the bowl on the left is Cherry
a piece of wood I exchanged for some of my Elm Burl it was dry but split, I cut the block by the split, machined a good surface and glued the 2 pieces together before I turned a shape again I found shakes in the wood that had to be glued up before the final turning, all these pieces have been rewarding to get to a final point.