Our demonstration for March was Franck Johannesen turning a bowl from Norfolk Island Pine (NIP).
One of the most critical aspects of turning NIP is to align the knots as best is possible. To accomplish this, Franck uses a homemade spur drive which provides a secure grip and allows for repositioning the NIP blank.
Once the NIP has been roughed out, Franck used a marker to circumscribe the blank. Then he sees how the knots fall in line with the mark and adjusts the blank to better align the knots. This is a “best fit” proposition and, depending on the blank, it is not unusual to have to forfeit one or two knots.
Once the blank is aligned, the objective is to turn through the knots at a shallow angle to allow the knot to “stretch” from the center to the outer edge of the bowl.
Show ‘N Tell
President’s Challenge
The winner of the President’s Challenge (bowl < 2″ diameter) was Allen Quandee with the red acrylic bowl shown below.
