Made in the USA - going to China!

[Dave Schell]

In a small attempt to balance the scales of things "Made in China" coming to the USA, this bowl was "Made in the USA" and is headed to China. :D

My sister-in-law and her husband will be traveling to China in a few weeks to meet and bring home their new adopted daughter. It is customary for the adopting parents to bring gifts to the foster parents in China. I suggested that a hand turned wood bowl would make a great gift and they heartily agreed.

So here is the one I donated. It's a piece of heavily spalted (but also slightly punky) maple I have on hand. I prominently wrote "USA" on the bottom of the bowl next to my signature. It's a neat feeling having one of my pieces going halfway around the world. It makes me wonder what will become of it in 20, 30 - 50 years.

PS - pictures were taken in the new light tent I made this week. Suggestions for improvement in the photography are welcome.

[Richard Madison]

Beautiful piece Dave. Pictures are pretty good too, but seem to have a slight blue cast. White balance might be off just a tad, or maybe underexposed a little bit. Even with white balance preset, mine tend toward a little blue due to underexposure (I think).

[Steve Schlumpf]

Pretty cool story Dave! Great looking bowl - love all the spalt!

Agree with Richard about the photos - mine tend to go blue as well but I figured it was due to the temp of the lights I am using. I use 2 daylight compact florescent bulbs that are 5900*K. Should have gone with a temp rating around 5200*K to mimic natural sunlight. Anything over 5200 tends to go blue - under 5200 tends to go red or at least that's what my experience has shown.

[George Morris]

Great trade baby for bowl! Congrats to the new parents!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beautiful bowl and great story. I think that is a great gift.

[Chris Rae]

Great looking bowl and a great story! Congrats to the new parents!

[Bob Vavricka]

Dave,
Love the bowl. The grain and shape are very pleasing and a gift that I think will be appreciated. I bet it feels good in the hand. I hope to do as well some day. My congratulations to your SIL and her husband on their new daughter.
Your photography looks good to me, I think the blue people are seeing is from the blue hue in the background. That is what my hue clocks tell me too--I tried to sample areas that I thought might look blue--see the attached pics.By the way what did you use for a background?
Keep in mind, I am an amateur at both wood turning and photo editing. :)
Bob V.

[Dave Schell]

Bob, that is some slick software you have there that measures the different colors. What package is that?

Steve, my lighting for the shots was from two 100watt n:vision daylight compact fluorescence bulbs - the package indicates their temperature is 5500k. My light tent is a simple pvc frame covered in a white bedsheet. The background is a varitone #39. As for camera settings, I just shot them in Auto mode.

Thanks for all of the other comments. My SIL leaves for China next weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Dave - your photo setup sounds very close to what I am running - so, next couple of questions - what camera are you using and more importantly - what graphics software are you running to tweak your photos?

[Dave Schell]

Steve, I have a fairly new Canon Powershot A200IS (10megapixel). I have Photoshop on my desktop computer, but didn't use any software to tweak these photos. I will have to revisit the tutorial posted here a while back on how to do that.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Dave - sounds like you have everything needed. You are basically looking at the white balance adjustment in the graphic software. Let us know if you need any assistance.

[alex carey]

wow that looks like a nice piece. It certainly is nice to have something go around the world. My friend went to Egypt and I gave her a vase to give away there just so I could go transcontinental.

[Bob Vavricka]

Dave,
That is a Photoshop plug-in called Curvemeister. You can check it out at www.curvemeister.com (http://www.curvemeister.com) They have some online tutorials for using it and I have taken their online class a couple of times. I like using it, but am not very good at it. Too much to do; too little time. Bob V.

[Jim Becker]

Very nice. When we adopted our daughters from Russia nearly four years ago, many folks got turned objects (mostly pens due to ease of transport) as courtesy gifts.