A coworker invited me out to his place last weekend to search out some good mistletoe burls for turning. I found quite a few. Here is a really nice one.

These are the kind of large burls I like to find. They almost always have fantastic grain patterns. The wood in these is often very hard to turn and can test my patience and my turning abilities.

But the finished product is always worth the effort!

A short video showing some finishing techniques I use. Enjoy!

Well, the hot summer is finally cooling off a bit, which gets me in the mood to get back to my “environmentally controlled” shop and start turning. I just don’t enjoy turning when it is 105 degrees at the lathe.

Here’s a couple of turnings I finished today: a nice goblet turned from a piece of mesquite mistletoe burl and a shallow bowl with a natural edge. The goblet is 6″ high x 2″ dia. The bowl measures 10″ dia x 2.5″ dia. Click on the picture for a larger resolution.

This natural edge mesquite bowl has some really beautiful grain patterns in it. The wood came from the area just above the roots. Mesquite beetles have made some interesting patterns in the sapwood.
It measures 7.5 inches in diameter x 3.5 inches high.
Price: SOLD

EXPERIENCE: I have been sharpening knives since I was a kid and take pride in producing a real good edge on a knife. Most of my friends in high school and all of my roommates in college cut themselves on my knives.

TOOLS: I use an EdgePro Apex sharpening system (pictured above) for most of my sharpening. All of the knives in the picture belong to me and I sharpen all of them with the EdgePro sharpening system. The Apex produces a precise and consistent edge on a knife.

REASONS: A sharp knife is a pleasure to use and cuts where you want it to. A dull knife is dangerous and takes much more effort to cut anything.

PRICING: My prices start at $4.00 for smaller knives and go to around $10.00 for long bladed knives, depending upon the length. Basically, I charge $1 per inch of blade. I sharpen kitchen and paring knives, pocket knives, hunting knives and even Bowie knives.

THINGS I WILL NOT SHARPEN: I cannot sharpen scissors or knives with full serrated blades.

*PLEASE READ THIS*: Cheap knives don’t sharpen well and won’t hold an edge. If you have any poor quality knives you might not want to pay me to sharpen them. The metal in those knives will not hold an edge very well and you won’t be very pleased with the results.

If you have good quality knives that need a good edge on them, contact me. You will be glad you did.

Thanks to some really good neighbors, I got my hands on a nice large mesquite log this weekend. I had been wanting to turning some larger bowls but have had a hard time lately finding some quality wood.

Yesterday I broke out the chainsaw and cut a couple of large bowl blanks from the log. I then prepared one for turning by removing the bark, flattening the top and attaching a 6 inch faceplate. Here I am just beginning to shape the profile of the bowl.

My lathe is 7 inches over center, which means with the headstock parallel to the bed I can only turn a bowl blank that is less than 14 inches in diameter. Fortunately the headstock on my lathe swivels 90 degrees out, which allows me to mount a much larger piece of wood, like the one I’m working on here.

Once I turned the diameter below 14 inches I rotated the headstock back parallel to the lathe bed.

The wood was very wet, so I hollowed it out to about 1 inch thick and set it aside to dry for a few weeks. When it is dry I will turn it down thinner, finish it and post a picture.

Here is one of my latest turnings. This bowl came from a very dry piece of mesquite mistletoe burl. It measures 5.5 inches in diameter x 3.5 inches tall.

What is mesquite mistletoe burl, you might ask?

This beautiful burl is produced when mistletoe attaches itself to a branch of a mesquite tree. The mistletoe draws moisture and nutrients to the place where it attaches and causes the wood to swell up, producing fantastic grain and interesting patterns. This wood is perfect for turning into an attractive and interesting bowl.

I call this wood mistletoe burl, as do most woodworkers who use mesquite. The dark streaks appearing in the wood are the roots of the mistletoe. The grain is always unique in every bowl I turn from these pieces of wood.

Here are a few more examples of bowls I have turned from mistletoe burl.
Bowl #16
Bowl #17
Bowl #30