Burl goblet - critique welcome

[Thom Sturgill]

Here's my latest piece, done Christmas week. I did a bunch of ornaments too, but let the best get away before I got pictures. This is Australian burl and ebony, 6 3/4" tall and just over 2" diameter. The stem is pinned with a brass rod, ans is the second one turned. I started with spalted tamarind, but the spalting was all on the back side and I dropped it breaking the base. IMHO the ebony shows off the burl better anyway.
Lacquer finish on the burl (the ebony was buffed) followed by ren wax.

Still don't have this lighting thing down, I'm thinking of getting a better camera.

[Matt Ranum]

Very nice, the seam between the woods looks flawless.

[Mike Minto]

Mahvalous!! The ebony and burl are wonderful together.

[John Keeton]

Thom, that burl is absolutely beautiful, and dropping the previously turned stem was fortuitous, as the ebony is striking with this piece. I think the conflicting grain of the spalting would not have produced as pleasing a result.

Very nice work.

[Dave Halter]

Thom that is beautiful. I like how you brought the woods together in the stem instead of at the base of the cup.

Dave

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thom that is a beautiful piece. Really like the burl and how the contrasting woods go together.

[Baxter Smith]

Very pretty. The contrasting (but not too much)woods go together well.

[Jamie Straw]

[snip] IMHO the ebony shows off the burl better anyway.
Lacquer finish on the burl (the ebony was buffed) followed by ren wax.

Still don't have this lighting thing down, I'm thinking of getting a better camera.

What a beautiful goblet! The ebony was perfect to go with the burl.

Are you using a flash, or ambient lighting?

[Thom Sturgill]

Thanks all, for the nice comments.

John, I agree about breaking the first stem, although the area at the bottom had to be turned down a little from the original. The stem was glued and the piece returned to the lathe to true the joint. The second stem is also thinner than the original due to the denser wood.

Jamie, I have a fabric covered box my wife bought me, its about 18" cube and came with 2 small spot lights - I added two more so I have a tube light above in front and a spot on either side with a third aimed at the back. All are outside of the cube. The cube has 4 hangings for backdrops, black velvet, white, blue and grey and a black plastic piece to use as a reflective base. I'm using a Fugitsu S700 camera in macro mode and want to get a DSLR with a telephoto to get more depth of field.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Thom - very nice work! Pleasing form and great looking woods! You should be very happy with this one!

I am no expert when it comes to photos - curious as to what you would change? Your photos are in focus - which seems to be everyone's biggest problem. The photos seem slightly over exposed but that can be adjusted. Some things can be done with software.... just curious as to what you are not pleased with?

[Thom Sturgill]

Steve, I am happy with this one, though it seemed cursed for awhile. The humidity was too high (and temp too low) for lacquer and it just kept messing up to the extent that I used a buffer to remove the lacquer! One coat came out blushed so bad it looked like foam:eek:. Then the weather warmed and dried a bit and the lacquer took well (this is after replacing the damaged stem).

As to the photography, I took about 20 pics to get these 4 to a point that adjusting the color levels gave me a decent image. When photgraphing larger items like bowls, macro mode gives too small a focal plane (if front is focused back is out of focus) so I want a true telephoto lens and better control over f-stop and timings.

[Steve Schlumpf]

I understand totally about depth of field issues and pretty much had a DSLR all picked out and was waiting for the price to come down a little over the holidays. Didn't happen and the online merchants who carried the camera were suddenly out of stock! Well, if that's the way they want to be... then I'll wait and see what new camera comes out next week!

[David E Keller]

Beautiful combination of woods. I love the NE Burl portion. If I were gong to change the piece, I might consider making the stem a little thinner, but that's just personal preference. It's a beautiful piece as is