This is my favorite natural edge bowl to date. The overhang on one side just makes it stand out. I just love the grain in the Sycamore but have not decided whether I should put any sort of finish on this or just leave it naked. I really don’t know how I ended up with this shape — I was in the zone! Hopefully I can duplicate it because other people want one now and they can’t have mine!
I call this part of the G-string collection. This is the 3rd natural edge bowl I have turned from my pile of Sycamore — all with irregular shapes. I find it exciting to turn something that is not all round for a change. Of course with a bowl like this I resorted to tons of hand sanding as not to disturb the bark. The Sycamore holds the bark pretty well and I have not had any fly off as I have with other woods. This one has a spray lacquer finish.
I have had a couple chasing me down to buy one of my honey pots for months now. I felt like I was in a rut with these but people seem to like it. The owner of the Green Phoenix told me the last one was sold to someone looking for a burial urn for their pet. A whole new market? In any event I had to get one done so I used some of my new Sapele with Wenge and Oak for the band and a maple top. Nice pot but I need to branch out a bit more!
I did my standard Birthday routines — went to the wood store to pick up a nice (expensive) board of Sapele, got a haircut and then off to the shop to spend some quality time with a cooler of beer and dangerous tools. This bowl is made from that sapele but has a ring of coal in it — that’s right, coal. These are not your soft charcoal briquets but hard coal that my son uses in his blacksmithing forge. It almost looks like onyx.
I had an old practice bowl sitting on the Wall of Shame that I gave to my son’s dearest one to practice her wood burning on. I had no idea I would be getting it back — with added embellishments. Quite the art piece! Thanks Britni!
I have to admit it is more fun to pick up a seemingly piece of trash wood and find beauty inside than to pick up something that you already know what it will look like when you start. I don’t even know where this piece came from but it had been hanging around my shop for a very long time and it was time to either toss it or turn it. I’m glad I picked the latter! It has sort of a marbleized grain to it with random color patterns. About 5″ in diameter with a mahogany lid and wenge spindle. Don’t even think about it — this one is mine.
I was cutting a part of a stump off to get it through my band saw. The stump had been sitting for a while and I wasn’t even sure what it was (or where it came from for that matter). Rather than throw the cut off in the trash, I chucked it up in the vase to see where it would take me. It appears to be cherry with just tons of figure in it (from being so close to the ground I imagine). With the serious angle on the end it could only take one shape and it seemed to me that it wanted to be a nice little wind-proof tea light candle holder. So it was!
I have turned a lot of cherry but most has not been from an actual Cherry fruit tree. I found myself with some unexpected free time and turned out this little lidded pot. It measures about 4″ in diameter. The top is a old piece of bug-eaten ash that I dyed brown with a bit of a ball from a scrap that was sitting on my window sill. Is anything actually scrap?
I had someone give me a pretty gnarly looking piece of plum. Since most fruit wood looks amazingly beautiful I had to give it a turn. To the left is the raw material. There was a lot of cracking and checking in the log but that’s just part of the challenge. I was able to get two small pieces with minimum cracks and took them in different directions but still just lidded boxes in the end. I was right the wood has beautiful character.
I’ve had a bag of turquoise dust in stock for a long time and finally decided to use some of it. This piece would be a nice little change dish to store contents of your pockets. The contrast between the walnut and the turquoise is quite striking to say the least. I did figure out a few things that will make the next piece a bit better (there are a couple of tiny voids in the dust that should have been filled after sanding). I did manage to sand it very flush despite the rock-hard quality of the dust. This piece is about 6″ in diameter and has a few coats of lacquer followed by a good rub down with 2500 grit and then a few coats of wax.