PHOTOS BY DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Bruce Young gets splattered with shavings at the lathe.
Bigger is better, and thin is really good ... at least when it comes to making handmade wooden bowls.
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comEnvision the diligent bowl-maker who has spent up to 100 hours carefully turning the piece on a lathe while cutting and chiseling the block so thin that the wood is nearly transparent. Then it happens. Bam! -- the piece explodes into pieces.
"It's the nature of turning," says Bruce Young, 49, a wood turner by avocation for several years. "You just have to start again and remember what you did wrong."
Young and his son Pierce, 14, are among 70 woodworkers participating in this year's Hawaii Wood Show, opening tomorrow at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center.
Bruce Young shaped a block of wood into a bowl as his son, Pierce, 14, observed. Both have a bowl entered into the upcoming wood show.
One of the elder Young's entries is a bowl 21 inches wide and 14 inches deep made of milo wood from what was a 500-pound root ball found in Waimanalo.
Pierce's pieces run the gamut from candlestick holders to lamps and bowls.
The Hawaii Wood Show is the grandest showcase of Hawaii's finest woodwork and requires entrants to use Hawaii-grown woods. This year's educational display will provide information on use of lesser known Hawaiian-grown non-native tree species. The show is intended to serve as a reference point for the planting of native and non-native high-value hardwoods for the coming generations.
Some of the woods used in the show include koa, mango, kamani, milo, Norfolk Island pine, macadamia nut, lemon-gum, robusta eucalyptus, kiawe, silky oak, tropical ash, sugi pine and West Indies mahogany.
A Best of Show award will be named, as well as first-place honors in the categories of furniture, wood turning, sculpture and musical instrument, in open and student divisions. There is also a novice class for first-time entrants.
Shown are milo wood, left, and kamani.
Many items displayed will be available for purchase. The show is presented by the Hawaii Forest Industry Association, a nonprofit organization with more than 270 members interested in promoting responsible forestry by creating a balance between Hawaii's forest products industry of Hawaii and environmental concerns for the state's 2 million acres of forests.
TURNING WOOD is a relatively simple technique. Attach a hunk of wood to a lathe, then cut into a balanced shape, fine-chisel it, then sand and polish. The art of wood turning was revived in America in the 1930s because of the Industrial Revolution. Wood turning's growth as a popular hobby and professional art form began quietly in the years following World War II. The lathe's economy, ease of use and self-contained versatility attracted many.
By the early 1980s, wood turning had begun to appear in galleries and craft shows, with younger artists recharging the old craft with innovative techniques.
Small lathes driven by hand-held bows probably provided the earliest form of turning, particularly of small items made of wood, ivory, bone, amber and precious metals. The earliest lathes were powered by the workman, sometimes with a colleague's assistance.
Pierce, general manager at the Honolulu Shipyard, has enjoyed working with wood since intermediate school. His first big project was a koa crib for his first son. But he had one dream: to own a lathe.
Pierce Young, 14, and his father, Bruce Young, show different types of bowls they created.
"I thought that was really cool," Pierce said. "I had seen how nice other people's work was from using a lathe. I rationalized buying one because the work would be a stress reliever, and I'd get satisfaction from making something."
His first lathe cost $600 two years ago but had a limited RPM capacity and ability to hold large pieces of wood. He has moved up to a $4,000 machine that can handle heavier pieces of wood.
In the case of Pierce's milo wood piece for the wood show, which he purchased from a Waimanalo landowner for $350, he first rough-shaped it with a chain saw, then mounted what was left -- about 125 pounds -- onto the lathe to shape it with chisels and other tools.
Pierce's favorite wood is that of the lychee tree. It's an extremely hard wood with a rich, red color and distinctive grain. Milo, another favorite, has shades of pink, purple, brown and black.
"I get tremendous satisfaction, and that's the main reason I do it," he said. "It's the process that counts. It may take me 100 hours, but it really is pure joy."
10th-anniversary show with 135 entries by more than 70 woodworkers Hawaii's Wood Show 2002
Where: Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, 2nd Floor, Ilima Court
When: Noon to 10 p.m. tomorrow through Sept. 22, except Sundays when the show closes at 6 p.m.
Admission: Free; $1 validated parking for Wood Show visitors only
Call: 479-7042
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