Wouldn’t it be cool if a couple of delightfully grumpy yet completely endearing makers had a short YouTube series where they visited places with lots of downed trees (aka Lakewood area right now) and they took some of the wood and I don’t know…turned a bowl…and returned it to the home of the downed tree?
Think click and clack woodworks with golden hearts and skills.
This is a great idea, however, green wood takes a while to dry. You can easily turn a bowl from green wood and many of us have, but then it must be bagged or otherwise prevented from cracking. Even so it will take time to dry. (It dries quicker turned because there isn’t as much material to dry out) Once it is dried it will have to be re-turned to remove the warpage that may have occured.
The time from downed tree to home owner presentation of a bowl could be 6 months to a year.
@coloneldan
Great points. That said, we could hollywood this. Instead of giving a finished bowl, just do a series on found wood. Show the picking up of a piece off the curb. Time lapse the turning, Finish the bowl green and show a final product that looks great. Then throw that thing away before it inevitably cracks and warps. For the video everything would look great and would be performed in a time period appropriate for a video.
But, I’m not going to do this.
I wrote down the addresses of many houses I took log pieces from in Lakewood with the idea of at least sending them a card with a picture of a bowl to show their tree did not go to waste. Didn’t plan to just turn a bowl and return it to them though, and didn’t think of Youtube. It’s not a bad idea though.
There are a couple of options for shortening the turnaround time:
Love the full circle-ness of it. Points to you for being a good human.
Unrelated Side Story: I was just in the grocery store and an older gentleman came back in and gave the checker a small bit of flowers that he (I’m guessing) picked from his house. He gave them and said simply - thank you for making me happy today - and she hugged him and it was just an awesomely delightful moment to be part of. He pointed at me and he said “and you, you’re awesome too”. Anyways, the world needs more of this and you’re doing this.
This is the very ideal of being a good person. Sharing your happiness and passing along best wishes to a perfect stranger. It can literally make their day.
Years ago I wore a USAF uniform. We all went out to eat at our favorite BBQ place the Railhead in Ft Worth: https://www.railheadsmokehouse.com/…
A perfect stranger came up behind us when it was time to pay and paid for all of our lunches. He said thank you guys for your service to our country. I was blown away.
We all thanked him as he walked out of the place. It was a simple gesture I have returned to others many times since. It is these times that remind you that the world is really not as bad a place as some would make it out to be.
On the original post:
I too have picked up downed trees resulting from our recent storms. I picked up just last week a Bradford pear tree crouch. I cut it up and put green wood end sealer on it. https://www.rockler.com/green-wood-end-sealer-select-option . It belonged to my next door neighbor. She was heart broken to lose the tree. I intend to make her a bowl later in the year.
I harvested a sycamore tree from a friend’s rental property that a storm took down a year ago. It is just now dry enough to turn. It just takes time. Microwaving does work, but I’ve only done it on pen blank size wood.
we could hollywood this.
This is probably the best approach to getting it done quickly. Show the process, not necessarily with that exact piece of wood you show getting picked up.
Sprinkle in some hashtags and CC the “feel good story” dept of all the local TV stations when the final delivery is made.
@team_pr @Team_Digital_Media could maybe get in on the fun?
Could tongue-in-cheek it and have a literal oven as a prop nearby and pull the finished bowl out of that when done with the green one. ‘And here’s one we had ready and you can see…’
All of this is found wood and I have a youtube channel already plus a professional videographer on deck…
What’s your YouTube?
I have 1 monetized account and newish art one. Neodot is the new one, forget the other
Need to do more with it and apparently change the share name, lol
I’m going to get on this my next day off!
