I got the chainsaw out today. 'Orrible, oily, noisy, smelly thing.

- The plank at the back is the wood cut out of the main slot. Yes, the chainsaw bar is on upside down - it gets rotated each time the chain is swapped or sharpened.
- Bowl horse - chainsawed 1.jpg (105.1 KiB) Viewed 16684 times
Man, it was hot with the safety gear on: I drank 3 pints of water and 2 cups of tea while working on this. I thought one tank of fuel would be more than enough but I had to fuel & fill the bar oil 3x!

- Bowl horse - chainsawed seat 1.jpg (81.55 KiB) Viewed 16684 times
Unsurprisingly, I couldn't get the saw to follow my diagonal cut line for the seat, so I opted to cut it out as 2 blocks, so I could re-start the cut higher. I also made leg cut-aways, following David's original design. Despite the obvious discontinuity, the seat is already comfortable but I plan to shape it with hand tools later (adze, bowl gouge, etc.).

- Pic shows the blocks of wood remove - reminiscent of a butcher's joint diagram. The slot was cut to be around 38mm wide but required some widening & "chainsaw planing" afterwards - it's a good fit now for the proposed swing arm, shown in the slot, now.
- Bowl horse - butchers diagram.jpg (85.56 KiB) Viewed 16684 times
ChainI used a regular Stihl chain for about 80% of the cutting; I had to re-sharpen it once and then swapped it out in favor of a professionally re-sharpened standard Oregon 91 chain for the final (difficult horizontal/diagonal) cutting and the extensive cleaning & widening of the main slot. It produced a lot of chips, shavings and saw dust, far more than shown in these pictures: 10 large snow-shovels full, piled high.
Shaping the top & sidesDavid put a flat top on this and cut a diagonal slant down the entire length of each side. I really didn't want to do any more carving with the chainsaw, too much risk of disaster. So I will likely try to flatten the top out with hand tools: draw knife, #4 plane, spoke shave perhaps. I might add sacrificial pine strips either side of the slot too. Not sure if I need the diagonal slant cuts: my log is smaller diameter than David's and my long drill bit and augers are long enough to go through it as it is, for the swing-arm pivot holes. If I cut the slopes, I will likely use an axe.
The DesignAs I make this, I am struck that David's later transportable design is perhaps a far more sensible/practical implementation: there is no obvious advantage to using a big log over standard timber other than, perhaps, aesthetics (David's log bowl horse is a thing of considerable beauty) and mass/stability. The later design is much lighter & slimmer (and therefore moveable & transportable and so more versatile & convenient), it requires much less wood, no chainsaw or super-long drill bits/augers just a few basic hand tools - and probably only one person to move it.
Locating the bowl horseI've not yet figured out where this will live. Being sweet chestnut, I suppose it could live in my outside work area, alongside my bowlmate, covered with a tarp, that would be pleasant and convenient for working - but moving it there, up steep narrow steps, will be quite a task and I wonder how long it would last. Ideally it will go in the workshop (garage) but that's rather full currently.