Experience Exchange:
Wood turned bowls: A master woodturner's secrets
This woodworker talks about what he's learned turning logs into wooden bowls
Around Stephan's workshop are many pieces of unfinished wood.
There's wood bowls which have been turned but not yet finished, as well as wooden blanks sitting and drying in bins of sawdust.
The Quebec-based woodworker says he's often at peace when he's in his workshop turning wood bowls, and sometimes he'll sneak off and do it when his family is in bed.
"Often now when I turn, I turn when people are going to sleep and I'm going to spend two hours turning," says Stephan as he clamps a chunk of live-edge wood onto his lathe to turn into a bowl.
We visited Stephan at his home and workshop to see how he achieves the final shape of his work and how he uses his woodturning skills to transform blank pieces of walnut, maple and cherry trees into works of art.
The truths of wood bowl turning
One of the most important things Stephan says is important when he's turning wood bowls is a connection to the piece.
Whether it's the story of the wood itself or what he's trying to achieve, the woodturner says he doesn't accept jobs if he doesn't have a personal connection to the work.
"Do I make this for people? Yeah, 100 percent. But do I make it for myself? Yeah," says Stephan. "I've made urns, I've made commissioned bowls out of people's property, but I was still making it for me. When I start making things that are not my idea... it doesn't work out."
While the woodworker says his wood turned bowls sell at craft markets and fairs, at the end of the day the joy he gets out of woodturning are the best outcome of all.
He admits too that he isn't focused on improving his skills, just honing in on what the wood is trying to say and telling that story.
Turning into a woodturner
Turning bowls can be a rewarding and creative process that transforms a simple piece of wood into a beautiful and functional piece of art.
For Stephan, wood bowl turning requires patience, skill, and attention to detail, but it's led to many different pieces, and each one is unique with a story he's able to tell when he hands it to his customers.
The artisan and woodworker walked members of the Woodland Mills team through the entire process of turning a bowl, from milling the material off of a log to rough-turning to final shaping. While he didn't show the sanding process that day, he did say there is a lot that needs to be done afterwards to prepare a wood turned bowl for its final home.
Even with lots of practice and experience creating stunning wooden bowls, many of which feature knots, burls and curves from the natural beauty of the wood, Stephan is humble. He doesn't describe himself as an artist, and says while he's developed from a beginner woodworker into someone with plenty of experience, his goal isn't to make masterfully crafted work, it's to make something unique that tells a story.
For him woodturning is more than just a hobby, it's a way for him to relax and think about the world around him.
Making green wood into bowls, vases and more
The process of transforming a felled log into a piece of art takes time and skill, though Stephan admits he didn't have a whole lot of the latter when he started milling and woodworking.
"I'm not disappointed about how bad the first stuff was, or how uneven my cuts were when I first got the mill," he says. "This has taught me to be a way more patient person... I look back and think, 'ah that's kind of garbage,' but I learn from it so it's not a waste of time."
Stephan will start with a log on his HM126 Portable Sawmill, milling it into a cant. Sometimes he'll keep a little bit of bark on the log so he has a live edge he can incorporate into his turned bowl.
The wood comes from both Stephan's property and other artisans who will visit and trade wood with him.
Once he's milled the green timber he'll use a chainsaw to cut up the off-cuts or slice off the end and turn it into the blank. That blank will eventually become a bowl or vase.
Stephan says he tries not to use the center of the log to avoid cracking, but if cracks naturally he'll use leather stitching to piece if back together. Ultimately if the piece ends up becoming cracked or imperfect he takes it at face value and incorporate those flaws into the finished work.
The next step involves aging the wood. Stephan says he'll sometimes leave pieces in the decaying brush around his property to let it dry or develop fungus, giving the wood grain a specific stain many woodworkers find desirable. He'll also fill barrels with sawdust from his mill and toss unfinished blanks in to draw out the moisture.
Inside Stephan's shop
Once he's got a blank with a shape he's comfortable with then he takes it back to his workshop to transform into a wooden bowl.
Inside he's got dozens of blanks, from half-finished bowls and vases to burls he says he wants to turn into something, but he's unsure what yet.
Stephan says when he starts turning on his lathe, he says there's a limited amount of control he has: he can influence his carving and the speed of his lathe, but ultimately the grain and how the wood will react is outside of his control.
It's a mentality that he's realized applies to real life too. He says woodturning has led him to slowing down in his real life and finding joy in the little things.
"When I'm in here, I'm in the zone," he says, adding that hours will pass as he transforms his wooden blanks into works of art.
Stephan's tips for beginner woodturners? Go slow, he says, and see where the wood takes you. If there's any mistakes, embrace them and use them to learn. And even if there's nothing left to learn, there's still beauty in the imperfect.
"The strive to always be better and better and better at something, or more, more, more, for me that's done," says Stephan. "I can improve but sometimes it's perfect just the way it is, even if it's not."