August 2016

Making a Calabash with Mark Baker

Setting the scene Mark explained the origins of the piece that he was about to turn. A calabash is a gourd from the calabash tree. These fruit have hard skins and once the flesh is eaten and the skin allowed to dry the resulting vessels were used by nomadic peoples for containing foods and liquids. A calabash has a semi-spherical base which needs to be set down on a soft surface to prevent it toppling; e.g. sand. With modern hard surfaces a turned calabash would need to sit on a ring to keep it upright.

Mark was to make the calabash from a piece of London Plane Burr. He remarked that some cracks had developed in the blank and this fact was to influence how he decided to tackle the piece. Due to the configuration of the cracks he decided that the safest route to pursue was to hollow into the end grain as opposed to the side grain.

The block of wood was set between head and tail stock utilising a revolving ring centre to spread the imposed loads. The initial task was to cut across what was to become the base of the calabash and then to ascertain a little further the extent of the cracks. To do this Mark used a swept back bowl gouge. This tool was used to form a spigot on the foot and also to create the outer shape of the calabash. The shape was later refined using scrapers. A roughing gouge was not used Initially to create a cylindrical shape.