Mike Mahoney is a production bowl turner who made us envious of his skill and his turning speed. I guess when you make over 2,500 bowls each year you get most proficient. Most of his wood comes from local municipalities - thus he recycles wood!

Mikes main products are salad bowls and nesting bowl sets and can be found in galleries all over the country. He sells his larger bowls ( 11 to 22) wholesale to galleries and his smaller bowls are sold through Craft Supplies. (Great sales tip: he often sends a video to the Galleries to help in the sales effort.)

Mikes bowl blanks are generally a tree trunk with a length equal to the diameter and chain sawn lengthwise through the pith. He generally has 1,000 blanks drying on the dirt floor of his basement studio. He turns green wood and said even after 2 years of air-drying, the wood is still green in his dry area.

Mahoney starts his process by using a screw chuck to rough out the blanks. After chucking up a blank, he rough turned it, using a bowl gouge with a 45-degree angle. (He can turn 36 diameter but prefers no more than 17.) He turned a spigot about 40% of the rough diameter, using a slight under cut with a flat face for the chuck to mate against. The most secure grip is when the chuck is almost closed. Occasionally you may need to face off the front surface of your chuck with it closed all the way and use a scraper. He thinks the Axminster Chuck is the best of all out there.

The next step was to use a bowl gouge as a scraper to cut a pleasing design to the bowl. The chips were really flying. Mike then turns up the speed for the final cut; he sharpens the gouge before the final cut. He normally has 10% thickness for drying. (A 10 bowl will have a 1 thick wall.)

A production turning technique includes coating the bowl with wax on all sides and storing it on the dirt floor in his studio basement. The bowls are stacked so that they are never more than bench-top high and have no airflow; the temperature remains around 55 to 65 degrees.

Mike uses a small detail gouge for the final finish on a large bowl. He puts a crown on the rim and then starts down the inside of the bowl about ¼ the way. He then stops to check the finish. The final cut runs from the bevel to the center in one cut. In his studio he uses a vacuum chuck for increased productivity.

The next part of Mikes demonstration was devoted to making a hollow form vase using Ambrosia maple with a beautiful grain pattern. He started between centers to make the rough design using a 2/3 bottom to 1/3 top ratio. He then cut a spigot on the bottom and used a chuck.

Next, he cut the rim about 3 in diameter, removed the tailstock and made a V grove in the center for the drill bit to center itself. After checking the proper depth. he drilled the hole. He then used the Stewart tool to start scraping the inside of the vase. He started with a straight tool but switched to a curved tool for the finish. He prefers a scraper over a bowl gouge because the gouge produces ribbons that are hard to clean out with compressed air. He tests the wall thickness by tapping the walls with his finger.

To finish the outside he used a special tool he developed: a rod with a cone on it and a small sanding disk on the end. The cone is gripped in the chuck and the vase is placed on the cone and the rod slid up to the base. Then the tailstock is placed against the base. This allows light cuts on the outside and the base. The sanding takes about as long as turning the item itself. As a production turner, he has helpers for sanding of all his work. (That is one reason he can turn so many bowls each year.)

The next part of Mikes demonstration was devoted to showing how to produce a natural edge nesting bowl, using the McNaughton tool set. He used a big leaf maple burl. After rough turning the shape he turned a spigot and then mounted it in a chuck. In this case he starts with the largest diameter cut and then progressed to the smaller. The wall thickness was about 3/8. He got five bowls out of this set. His finish is a dipping in a mixture of 80% boiled linseed oil, 10% odorless mineral spirits and 10% urethane oil (Deft or Varithane).

Mike finished the day by showing how to cut inside threads on a boxwood ring to fit in the top of the Ambrosia maple vase. For a finial stopper, he chucked a piece of African Blackwood featuring an outside thread with a stop for the lip of the top.

A very interesting day of demonstrations for all those who attended.

--Carlos Kennedy

More about Mike Mahoney

More of Mike's work: