Projects and Plans
Dave Fisher carves a greenwood bowl in 3 minutes
Sit back, relax, and watch Dave Fisher make one of his hand carved bowls, in three minutes!
Feb 27, 2018
This is an excerpt from Dave’s video workshop, Carve A Greenwood Bowl. Dave shows you in exacting detail how he makes a bowl in 5 1/2 hours of video, broken up into 15 episodes. If you’re interested in green woodworking at all, this is a video series you don’t want to miss. Be careful though, after we shot this video, I was ready to sell my tablesaw*.
We’ve gotten a lot of great compliments about Dave’s series, here are a few of my favorites:
- Thanks for this wonderful videos. I had learned a lot about carving. Your special showing the process gave me a deep understanding. Very good explaining. This will be one of my next projects: a bowl.
–Uwe Adler, Holzpassion, Germany - In my humble opinion, one of the best instruction video series ever produced, thank you Fine Woodworking and thank you David Fisher. -Jareed
- Watching Dave work/create/teach, is mesmerizing. I’ve taken several classes with Dave, the last being at the 2017 Greenwood Fest and I found this series to be invaluable in my bowl carving “development”. While his skill and artistry are easily apparent in his pieces, the videos really highlight his perhaps greatest asset, that of a teacher. Thanks Dave and to FWW for producing this series. -VT Bowl Carver
-Ben Strano
More on FineWoodworking.com:
- Axes and Adzes for Bowl Carving – Dave Fisher shows you exactly what he looks for in his go to tools for making chips fly
- David Fisher’s Snug, Unplugged Workshop – A woodworker’s space evolves around him
- Food-Safe Finishes for Greenwood Pieces – In the final episode, Dave discusses food-safe finishing options for your bowl
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Comments
That was awesome, Ben.Looking forward to meeting him at FWW Live.
Hi, I wanted to see a video of a man hand carving a bowl in 3 and a half minutes. I have hand carved a few greenwood bowls using an adze, a carving axe, a drawknife and gauges. It took me days. Using an adze to hollow out a bowl takes a great deal of skill, time and energy. When I did this I was about 65. Then I heard that one of the two men who said he was using an adze to make bowls at the Waterford Arts and Crafts festival, actually used a chainsaw to hollow out and shape the bowls and then he finished them off with an adze. So I contacted the folks at King Arthurs's Tools, which sells 4" chainsaw blades that go on angle grinders. I was able to shape the outside of the bowl and hollow out the inside of the bowl in an afternoon. After that, I finished off the bowl using carving gouges. I am a carver. I found the gouges easy to use to do this. Using an adze hurt my arm, took forever, and I was prone to hitting the wood in the wrong place by a quarter or a half an inch. After that, I made many dozens of greenwood bowls in this fashion and enjoyed it greatly. You can learn about using a small chainsaw to shape bowls by contacting the folks at King Arthur's Tools. The use of 2 side by side chainsaw blades on a 4" angle grinder is a WONDERFUL and very safe tool. I use a "superjaws" three-legged vice for holding the wood. There is a lot to learn about keeping the bowls from cracking as they dry, and how to repair them if they do crack. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you stay away from adzes. I worked at Woodcraft, and tried a number of adzes before I figured out which ones could work on the inside of a bowl. I am in pretty good shape. I go to a gym five days a week, but my arm really hurt if I used an adze for a half hour, and it takes a lot of half hours to shape a bowl. It just isn't worth it. The bowl made with a small chainsaw takes less time, is more enjoyable, and looks identical to ones done with an adze and finished off with a carving gouge. I don't mean to downplay what Dave does. I am only offering an easier, simpler way to achieve identical results, and I do mean identical.
Not to argue that your method doesn't work, I can attest that with the right adze, Dave hollows the bowl in maybe half-an-hour. I do know that he agrees with you that the wrong adze is a nightmare of a tool.
Wonderful skill but there’s a lot of cutting towards your body. So not for me. I might try the angle grinder chainsaw if I can find one for carving chair seats.
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