Dale A. Carlisle Decoys
June Erla
Mrs. Fogg's Kitchen
JoJo Beads
KRT Woodworking
Crafts by Pat Masone
Joe Watts’ Burled Bowls
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Joe Watts’ Burled Bowls
By Laura Jean Whitcomb
Joe Watts enjoys spending time in the woods. “If I’m not hunting, I’m looking for moose antlers,” the Grantham resident says. On his walks, he noticed burls, outgrowths on trees that are sought after by woodturners. “I was going to sell them to a woodturner in the Adirondacks, Ken Gadway. I ended up apprenticing with him.”
But Gadway encouraged Watts to start big. “Some people say get started on a mini-lathe, turn little things and see if you like it. Ken said build the biggest lathe you can build and start right off turning bowls,” Watts recalls. He had just retired from a 30-year career in defense procurement.
Joe and Jim Dearden, a friend from Croydon, gathered parts from junkyards and built a lathe in 2002. While out on walks, he asked landowners if he could cut down the tree (offering them a bowl in return). He added a skidder to his ATV, loaded them both into his Chevy truck and began to bring burls home — some more than 500 pounds. “Anything I can get on the lathe, I can turn,” he says. He does, however, have an orange 2½ ton lift to help with the larger burls.
A small chainsaw squares off the top of the burl to create a flat section for the face plate, which is screwed on to the wood and then to the lathe. Joe turns the outside of the bowl first, retaining the bark for the bowl’s random edges, then turns the inside. He uses sandpaper from 100 grit to smooth the surface to 600 grit for fine sanding. “I do everything myself,” Joe says.
Bowls typically sit in a cool, dry place for a year, giving them plenty of time to dry out, twist and warp. “You never know about wood,” Joe says. “A piece may break off. It may crack. You’ve got to go with what the wood gives you.”
That goes for the burl as well. Joe may be able to make 10 bowls and 2 trays out of one cherry or rock maple burl, but “you never know until you cut into them,” he says. “You need to analyze the burl and decide how to cut it with the chainsaw to get the maximum out the burl. Sometimes they turn out beautifully with occlusions and holes.”
He shows a 24-inch serving tray, really too big for one person to pick up, that is drying out in sawdust in a wine cellar. The random edge bark is beautiful, and even in its raw state you can see how stunning this rock maple tray will be on a dining room table or in a front hallway. It will dry until February 2007, possibly longer because of its size, then transformed into a work of art with sandpaper and a natural finish of butcher block oil.
Joe gave bowls as wedding and Christmas presents, and only started selling them because his wife asked, “What are you going to do with these bowls?” He has several dozen lined up on a hutch — all of them numbered and named — some of them dating back to 2004. He now sells a few at galleries, but it’s still a hobby for Joe and he makes about 150 woodturned items a year.
“It’s a fun thing, keeps me out of trouble,“ he says. “For me, it has great therapeutic value. It is great to see how beautifully a piece of wood a block of wood, can ultimately turn out.“
Joe’s wood bowls can be found at Grantham Stonewall Gallery in Grantham, The Center for Traditional Arts at Center Harbor, the Shaker Museum in Canterbury and Artful Things in Lebanon. You can also contact him directly at (603) 863-6034. Prices range from $75 to $1,000.
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