This is my current passion and greatest frustration!  My lathe is an old Sears Craftsman that my father introduced my brother and me to when we were teenagers.  I rebuilt it a couple of years ago and added a live center and a few other items to "update" it. My dream is to produce those wonderful Natural Rimed Bowls you see on everyone else's web sites, but alas this continues to elude me. So I struggle on, always afraid to ruin that perfect piece of wood and continue to kid myself that what I end up making is really what I planed on making.  It seems my favorite lathe tool is sandpaper, at least I can control that!!

Or in this case for my brother, he works for Budweiser so for Christmas last year I got him a six pack of Bud with this Oak beauty in the middle.  He was quite surprised, and I had a lot of fun making it (especially emptying all the sample bottles).  I peeled off the labels from a bottle then glued and polyurethaned over everything, the cap screwed on nice and tight.  This is quite a conversation piece as you can imagine, besides my brother's not into wooden fruit!

The two Weed Pots are made from some Birch  fire logs that must have been cut about 20 years ago, I found them in the woods behind my house, the best part about them is the worm holes that twist up through the forms.  The Bowl and Dish are made from cherry as is the covered Bowl. 

My son uses the Bowl for his morning cereal,  I finished it with some Behlen's Salad Bowl Finish, It took about 5 coats to get a shine that's not too even.  If you know of a better "safe" finish please drop me a line.

Lot's of little "gifts" here, mostly for my wife.  Black Walnut ear rings with gold fittings, Oak hair piece and Black Walnut Pin with (woodburned and painted Irises), two tops one Cherry and one Zebrawood. The pens are Cocobola, the Wine bottle stopper is Black Walnut and the key ring is Cherry and Purple Heart laminate.

The Black walnut and cherry used in these came from my Brother-in-law who has a Tree Removal Service, he cut up some planks and lucky me I got a few.  Except for the Ear Rings and the Hair piece I've made quite a few of the others as gifts.

These Beads were made for my son, The woods are quite varied: Black Walnut, Cherry, Oak, Zebrawood, Ebony, Padauk, and Purple Heart.  I've vowed to make one bead with every kind of wood I can find (we'll see).  The box is Oak with a sliding cover,  I polyurathaned the lot.