Shopsmith Forums

Applewood -- it's not just for smoking bacon anymore!

Actually, apple has long been a popular choice for high-end tool handles. Vintage Disston hand saw handles come to mind. Per wood-database.com, applewood is about 20% harder than hard maple, with a very fine texture and small pores. It has a very attractive appearance.

A few years ago, an apple tree blew over in one of my neighbor's woods. It was roughly 12" in diameter at the base, which is about as big as apple trees get. My neighbor cut it up into firewood, and when I saw the beautiful color inside, I asked if I could have a couple of pieces. I rough-turned a bowl blank soon thereafter. But I didn't finish it until last month, when I decided to make it a Christmas present for my wife.

Our kids were home for Christmas, and I asked my oldest daughter how best to stage the bowl for photos. She found a great bowl arrangement photo on the internet, and we shamelessly stole their staging idea. After all, who could argue with putting apples in an applewood bowl? My daughter did the fruit arrangement, and I did the photography.


Turning-process and more beauty pics to follow ...

That's beautiful work. My bowls turn out looking crude compared to yours.

Gorgeous bowl Look forward to seeing the additional pics.

As an ex apple orchardist and cattle rancher, I wish I had kept of of our tree wood!

Nice job Dennis

Thanks, garys. Just be aware that I am cheating. That apple log was pretty rustic (translation: it had numerous defects), and I’m only going to show it from the good angles.

Aside from that, my turning technique is very simple. If the bowl profile isn’t nice and smooth, like a French curve, I scrape or sand away the offending humps until they are gone. Once I have these simple profiles mastered, I’m going to try some more complex shapes. But this particular bowl is only my third one.

I did try to turn this one a little thinner than my first two bowls. After doing a bit of internet research, I targeted a wall thickness of 3/8”. It came out at about 5/16”, though, due to all that de-humpification. My new Sorby bowl calipers gave me the ability to turn it that thin.

rjent wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:01 pm Gorgeous bowl Look forward to seeing the additional pics.

As an ex apple orchardist and cattle rancher, I wish I had kept of of our tree wood!

Nice job Dennis

Ha! And here I’ve been feeling sorry for you all these years, because I thought there was no source of nice local hardwoods in New Mexico. Check out what Lost Art Press has to say about apple wood.

Very nice! I have only worked with tiny bits of Apple wood, but it struck me as a "super" version of cherry. All the good attributes are enhanced.

Chris

Back to the beginning. Here's a pic of the rough log half on my Shopsmith bandsaw. The white thing underneath it is a circle-cutting jig.


I used a 6" faceplate to mount the blank for rough-turning the bowl bottom. The "flat" side of the blank wasn't very flat, as it was just rough-cut with a chainsaw. So to make sure that the faceplate mated up nicely with the blank, I covered it with blue painters tape, applied blobs of hot glue to it, and then stuck it all to the bowl blank. Once cooled, the hot glue formed shims to fill the gaps. Then I screwed the faceplate to the blank as per normal. I intentionally mounted it a bit off-center, to try and equalize the amount of sapwood on each side of the bowl.


Here's the blank after rough-turning the bottom. On my first two bowls, I turned mortises in the bottom, and then used my chuck in expansion mode. But that requires your bowl to have a pretty thick bottom. After admiring some photos of bowls with thinner bottoms, I decide to experiment with using a tenon on the bottom instead. That gives you something to chuck on in compression mode, but then you have to cut off the tenon when the bowl is nearing completion.


After rough-turning the interior of the bowl, all the wood defects were exposed. The knot holes were pretty punky, and needed to be filled. Also, I used an accelerated dessicant-drying technique on the rough-turned bowl, and this opened up a few cracks. To fill all these, I used thin slow-curing epoxy, with a few drops of colorant added. I just eyeballed the color, adding drops until it was about the same color as the darker streaks in the apple heartwood. The thin epoxy quickly wicks down into the defects, and I kept adding it until the the wicking stopped.


The epoxy looks ugly at this stage, but that's gonna change!

Actually, apple has long been a popular choice for high-end tool handles.

I have an old Atkins panel saw with an apple wood handle. It's smooth and silky and almost grainless.

john_001 wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 3:50 pm

Actually, apple has long been a popular choice for high-end tool handles.

I have an old Atkins panel saw with an apple wood handle. It's smooth and silky and almost grainless.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Some of those old saw handles are just gorgeous. I got a great deal on a couple of vintage Disstons with apple handles at an auction a while back. I haven't gotten around to restoring them yet, but the handles are in excellent condition.

Nice !! Good save ,, I am cutting down a 30 year old apple tree this spring I planted , the thing never had a good apple in its life , was going to split it op and use it in the smoker , I like a combination of apple / hickory smoked bacon ,, but now some of it It may have a 2nd life !!!