About a year ago I intercepted about a dozen cherry logs on their way to... I don't know exactly, but the logger sold them to me for $500. There was one big crotch, but it looked horribly cracked, so I set it aside and sort of forgot about it. The other day I cut it up and found, much to my surprise, that it was mostly intact and that careful cutting could get me two 14" crotch bowls without the natural edge.
The first one went without a hitch. Once turned and about 3/8" thickness. The second one I did tonight, and I decided to core it a little aggressively. You gotta do that to get crotch figure on your cores. Still, it had about 3/8" at the bottom plus the recess. I actually stopped and thought about filling the bark inclusion, but the last one was shallow, so why wouldn't this one be?
Yeah. It broke as I got to about 1" left on the coring (right where it gets rough for whatever reason). That hurt! And not just because it smashed my thumb when it broke.
broke1.jpg
broke2.jpg