One thing that became apparent last year is that people are looking for large bowls. They would look through all of the bowls that I had available and ask if I had anything bigger.
In an effort to come up with some bigger bowls I added an attachment to my lathe last winter that allows me turn outboard and greatly increases that maximum diameter that I turn. The next problem of course was finding some large pieces of wood to make bowls from and I was able to find that in the form of some large logs of horse chestnut and maple wood. These large bowls take quite some time to turn and then drying them takes several months so it takes quite a lead time to get anything ready. Roughing just a single large bowl can produce enough shavings to fill a yard waste bag.
The last of my large bowls sold early in the spring before any of the new bowls were ready to finish so I decided to try something with a blank that was kind of sketchy but on the larger side and definitely dry and wound up with a rather nice looking bowl.
That one sold by mid-summer but by then I had a couple of roughed out bowls that were ready to finish. These are the largest bowls I have made so far at 11 1/2 inches in diameter and 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 inches deep. The first one is horse chestnut and the second one is maple.
Of course one of those has sold already so I still only have one large bowl available. I have some more rough outs drying but I’ll have to get busy and make some more if I’m going to keep up to the demand.