DH has a tool with a curved blade that allows him to get a series of bowls (in decreasing sizes, one inside the other) out of one block of wood. Without this tool, the entire inside of the bowl becomes sawdust; with the tool, multiple usable bowls and much less sawdust.) He demonstrated the tool at his woodturning club meeting a few weeks ago, and since then we have had a steady stream of woodturners dropping by to have DH help them turn their wood blocks into multiple bowls instead of just one.
Today's visitor had a block of cocobolo, a relatively expensive hardwood from Mexico and Central America. The chunk he started with probably cost $100. For obvious reasons, he wanted to maximize his return on investment - each cocobolo bowl can sell for a lot more than that. I scavenged the small amount of sawdust and chips that ended up on the floor:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59S0BgOL51AQEBrJNbOqFoq2iZXMkWJOdPJG2D7HYwbSPnXD6i10r7f7hvZytp0VxLceEaDe4zCvzfW7UA2uZyTqyxqG04QKXLBgNJdhgOcv0AX_SV8mLaRYXFTAGz7j4qn5L/s320/wood-chips.jpg)
Some of it is now in a jar with denatured alcohol to extract the color. I suspect it will produce a color similar to a madder orange. I've used cocobolo as a dye source before, but it was a much darker piece of wood and produced a beautiful deep russet brown. This is somewhat paler wood, and will consequently make a lighter, more orange color.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNa064SmdeNfSLjWTecQQp8dFn9w8uwnNGhjSZ6v4EQurnZLzueJ_pgpLTJQoj-6gEf0fi2GRVbbI6iI1G2S15mxq1SXGTx-qVOv-6Dq9LV0lpHScUPzJOsWCqEQ2TW8Ut0_g/s320/wood-jar.jpg)
Hmmm. Some visuals about the bowls would be a good idea. I didn't get a chance to snap any pictures of the visitor's cocobolo bowls, but here's a set of elm bowls that DH is working on. The largest bowl (still unfinished - he's testing several different finishes, which will be applied after a final sanding) is big - about 14.5 inches (37 cm) in diameter:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HEYrjb91xmPK1_WNOco3zkt0CHC9VPyOwRPXAZ33ud5OPTtn0y2Gc_22PTufTOm1-6Drzi4M4-CEdFmQLLQNe0YdQYbGDgJiQXnkH_3wLt1hHLx4hZe2qeiGThvnKoxlVCMS/s320/big-bowl.jpg)
These 4 bowls, still in rough form, came out of the center of the biggest bowl:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuyJhWtGQ3xA6IcZWwyWuQQzcMi0UPUF2LJ1jT-LurDkJK-niZwuA5mAH2LfVyiwGTYfDQ7b1Oq97k5QdG_DumMVASfiqdMAG1YTuyNRG-laPVRLCkgEfdGJ4ZYZqARSAwnTmA/s320/4bowls.jpg)
Sort of like those handpainted Russian and Japanese dolls that come apart to reveal a smaller version inside, and another inside that, and so on...