It had been several months since I had roughed out a bowl from a log, the longest period of time in the last 25 years or so. There’s still plenty of settling-in to do here, but I was able to take advantage of a wind-fallen cherry tree to get back to swinging an adze. It felt good.
For a blank this large, my preferred way to hold the blank is to set it flat on my low bench with the end up against a peg or two. If the blank is smaller/lighter, then I may put pegs on the opposite end as well and drive slim tapered wedges between the blank and the pegs. With the method above, I can stay on one side of the bench and spin the blank around to work the opposite end.
With or without wedges, I’ve found that pegs that wedge tightly into the hole work best. So I taper them ever-so-slightly. They’re long enough that they can be knocked back up from beneath. They should also be from a tough wood. I split and shaved these last week from a small hophornbeam tree that had fallen nearby.
Above, I’m cutting the lateral trench across the grain with the bowl blank up against the two pegs.
This also gave me a chance to work more with a bowl adze made by Oscar Rush. There are many more people making adzes these days than when I got started, and I haven’t had a chance to try even a small fraction of their tools. There may be dozens of sweetly performing adzes being made by different folks that I haven’t tried. Of the ones I have tried, it’s unusual to find a really good one. I’ve mentioned a few good ones before. An adze is a tough thing to get right. Oscar has got it right as far as I’m concerned. And I like that he has left enough meat on his handle to allow for some minor adjustments to suit personal preferences. You can see in the photo above where the wood is a little lighter near the kick at the bottom of the handle. I like it to narrow like that at the front. Took about five minutes.
It’s nice to be surrounded by fragrant cherry chips and shavings again.
David Fisher, Carving Explorations 
Hi Dave, It’s good to see you are up and running in your new workshop. It will be interesting to see how your new shop is configured compared to the old one that grew up organically. Best of luck in your new space. Larry Z
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Thanks Larry. I’ll share more about the shop layout before long.
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must feel good–
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Dave, when you made the ellipse on the bottom of the bowl I see you used three circles. For the two outer circles did you use the intersections of the larger circle with the “equator” as the epicenter for the smaller circles? Thank you for being an inspiration as well as an unknowing mentor.
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It did work out the way you described in this case, Greg, but that was just by chance. I started by determining the length and width of the oval I wanted (but not a true ellipse) based on the size and shape of this particular bowl hollow. So the focal points of the smaller circles just end up wherever they do based on the ends of the foot and the radius I choose sort of arbitrarily based on feel. Sounds complicated, but it’s very simple. I go through it in my video series with Elia Bizzari.
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Thanks Dave. I will watch the videos again. I don’t remember it though.
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I’ll see if I can get a post together to explain that process, Greg. In the video, I think I used the process on the top of the bowl to form the oval. Not sure, though. It’s the same process for the foot, just on a smaller scale.
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You’re right. I watched the video yesterday and it was on top. I’ve been using a ruler to draw my ellipses. I like the more bigger, rounded ends of your bowls. I try the “3/4” method on my next bowl. Thanks
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Thanks for verifying that, Greg. You can vary the size of the smaller circles away from the 3/4 ratio. I just eyeball it and try a few tweaks until I get what I’m after for that particular bowl.
I do use a true ellipse sometimes. I wrote a post about how I lay that out several years ago. Here it is: https://davidffisher.com/2015/01/10/ellipse-layout/ The advantage over the ruler method is that it works on an arched bowl blank as well.
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I’ve used the string and brad method before but I don’t care for it. I like the idea of using the compass. Please forgive the “more bigger” comment earlier. I need to do a better job of editing. Never guess that I am a college graduate.
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Glad to see your back at it nothing like shaping wood for the soul this down time is killing me and I need a fix.
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Nice to see you back in the “saddle” again.
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