Hello All!
I wanted to post a few pics of my first turned bowl. It’s not a great bowl, and the effort to make it was hilariously poor, but I’m still happy at the result for a first bowl.
Here is a little video of it catching the light from my twitter: https://twitter.com/vakola/status/913533324215357440
The end result came out looking alright. I sanded down almost all of it to 2000, but didn’t bother finishing the wood. So and shine is a result of the woods natural luminance (it’s ash).
I didn’t get to sand it all over as it was a troubled piece from the beginning. Right from the start the faceplate mounting went wrong. The wood was to dense to take screws directly, so I drilled pilot holes. On the second pilot hole the wood grabbed the bit and snapped it off (I would later discover a tiny knot hidden in the wood was the likely culprit, though my poor skills are also a likely accomplice):
If I wanted to turn the wood, the bit had to be extracted… Which turned into a project in and of itself. After far too long it was finally extracted, and pilots were carefully drilled for the remaining screws with a slightly bigger bit. However a troublesome blemish was left;
The faceplate never truest mounted entirely flat and firm, and it become impossible to get a proper round. So I cut a tenon, gently took it down to shape and got it in the chuck for security. This means I couldn’t sand the foot on the lathe, so I abandoned the ideal of applying any finish and opted to sand the hell out of it instead.
After many “this looks done now, oh, but let’s correct that little thing with one minor cut… CATCH” I finally finished cutting and scraping and sanded it through the grits to 2000.
The ash, despite its trouble, is a wonderful looking wood even without and oils or finishes to bring out further colour in the grain. It’s very smooth and quite reflective from many angles.
It’s not going to win awards, but for a first attempt at bowl turning I am proud of the result all the same!
A big thanks to @Beth for staying late last night to teach me how to face turn. I will endeavor to do better/make less mistakes in future! 
–James.
