A side step into woodturning 
20 June, 2021 
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working on long-deferred projects such as rearranging (okay, finally setting up) my home office, serving as Mary’s arms in the yard while she recovers from rotator cuff surgery, etc. I haven’t spent much time at the word processor of late but have I have spent some time out in the shop, especially during a visit – our first family visit since pre-Covid, woo-hoo! – by my brother and sis-in-law. Pat and I spent most of a rainy day in the shop, letting him turn a bowl to take home whilst I cut a bunch of blanks to shape and coated them with sealer.  
A couple months ago Mary and I had taken down a dying Pacific Madrone in our back yard and I bucked it and brought it into the garage to start drying.  So during his visit, Pat and I experimented with turning one of the chunks into a bowl-shaped object. But we ran out of time and then I forgot and left the halfturned ‘bowl’ mounted on the lathe without any sealer, with predictable results. Check out the videos below and feel free to point and laugh.