Staved Segmented piece, critique requested

[Brian Brown]

This piece was a christmas present for my BIL and his family. This was a collabrative project with my wife...she told me what to do and I did it. :rolleyes: We wanted the finial to be more durable than usual because he has 4 rowdy boys ages 2 through 14.

The vase is made from bloodwood, hard maple and birdseye maple and has 60 pieces with a tung oil finish. It is a total of 13 inches, 9 for the body and 4 for the finial. We borrowed the style of finial from Keith Burns....thanks Keith!:D

Again with my nephews in mind...we made the lid removable...just in case the errant treasure got stuffed inside. Let us know what you think.

[David Walser]

Brian,

You and your wife do beautiful work together. I really like this lidded vessel. The woods go well together and the form/design of the piece really emphasize the vessel's vertical reach. Nicely done.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

What do I think ??, well Brian I think it is simply gorgeous :cool:.

The Bloodwood and Maple colors compliment each other and the Birds-eye in there is just extra candy :D.

The finial is a good size and a nice form/shape, I think you followed your orders very well, keep on doing it :rolleyes: :D ;)

[John Keeton]

Brian, I am probably in the gross minority in that I really don't care for many of the segmented pieces I see. But this one really stands out! It has just enough going on, the woods are beautiful together, you (and your wife!) combined them in a very pleasing pattern, and the form is great. Really a nice piece!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Very nice vase Brian! Pretty wood combination! Really like the Birdseye 'detail ring'! I am sure your BIL and family love it!

Excellent photo as well! Nice background!

[David E Keller]

Love the wood combo. The overall design is very nice as well. Great piece.

[Dick Sowa]

Sheesh...it don't get any better than that! Beautiful wood combination, and also a good job on the photography. A lot of folks use a plain, single color, background, but I like the way you did yours...sort of a smoky aura. Well done!

[GLENN THOMAS]

Brian, I am probably in the gross minority in that I really don't care for many of the segmented pieces I see. But this one really stands out! It has just enough going on, the woods are beautiful together, you (and your wife!) combined them in a very pleasing pattern, and the form is great. Really a nice piece!

I think Im in the minority with John. To me segmented pieces fall into one of to categories. Really bad or really good, no gray areas for me. Most pieces fall into the really bad category but to me this one is an exception. I really like every thing about it.

GT

[Mark Patoka]

You followed your wife's orders very well. Excellent job with the wood choices.

[Joe Adams]

I love it and I'm sure your brother in law does, too!

[Harvey Ghesser]

Just gorgeous....

well done!

[Robert McGowen]

Very nice wood combination and your joinery looks great.

[Brian Effinger]

Wow, I am blown-away by that vase, Brian. Really stunning. Beautiful form, great color combination. The only thing I am not sure about is the flat lid. It is interesting, bold and different, but I am just not sure. I am going to have to look at it some more, leave, come back and look at it again. You did such a good job on fitting the lid to the vase, that you can't see the joint, which makes it look like the vase continues to the flat area, and stops there, while the finial just floats.

What are the dimensions, Brian? And if you don't mind looking, could you post the EXIF data for all of us budding photographers? :D

Again, really great job! :)

Brian

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great piece Brian. You and your wife made a beautiful vase. I like the wood combo and the form looks great.

[Wally Dickerman]

I really like this piece Brian. Good color comination. I've always admired good stave contruction but I've done very few myself. Some day......

Wally

[Tony De Masi]

Love the piece Brian. The shape, use of woods, all look wonderful to me.

Tony

[Mike Minto]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Richard Madison]

Very nice work Brian. Might have rounded the very bottom edge to give the piece a bit of "lift" from the surface.

[Wally Wenzel]

That is really cool!!! I have used those two woods together myself but always have trouble with the blood wood bleeding on to the maple, how did you prevent that? Wally

[Keith Burns]

Brian, this is an excellent piece. The woods are fantistic together. I like the "flat top". And of course I love the finial:D. There is only one thing I would do different, and this is a nit pic, and that would be to just put a small roundover on the foot which would give some lift. Again, this is a very minor point. I would be pround to display this in my home.

[Ron Bontz]

I think I'll crawl back into my cave now.

[Ken Glass]

Brian,
What a great choice of woods for this piece. I think you have done a great job with design also. Fit and finish look super too. Well done. You and your wife should be very happy with this one.

[John Terefenko]

I am one of those ones who is a sucker for segmented work because I realize the amount of time in planing and gluing to make a piece is great and one screwup ther goes many hours of work. This piece to me has it all. It is simple yet elegant. I am not of the eye people have when it comes to seeing fine details, I just look at a piece and see what I see and if it is eye pleasing then I enjoy the piece. I have to say this is allof that and more. Nice work.

I too would like to hear about your secret for keeping the two woods from bleeding especially when sanding. Also what kind of finish did you put on it and how did you apply it??? Thanks and thanks for showing.

[Brian Brown]

I too would like to hear about your secret for keeping the two woods from bleeding especially when sanding. Also what kind of finish did you put on it and how did you apply it???

My secret to keeping the colors from bleeding is.... Are you ready for this....It's the most amazing thing you'll ever learn in your life.... Definitely worth the price of admission... Here it comes... Dumb Luck. Yep that's it. I made the msitake of cleaning the inside out with acetone after the final sanding. Sure glad I didn't do that to the outside. The red bled everywhere. I had to resand starting at 150 grit. What a mess. The worst part is I knew better. There is a small amount of bleed here, but I find if I sand with a light touch, and use an air compressor often, the colored dust doesn't get tightly compacted into the small pores. The real saving grace here is that the maple is a very fine pored wood, with very little place for the colored dust to get caught. Blow it off with compressed air, vacuum the surface, then wipe with a clean tac cloth that is constantly being rolled to a clean area. Then I fiished with minwax tung oil, which caused a bit of bleeding after all that work. I have heard many other solutions, but I really don't know which ones work. I think luck is the real trick here.

[David Walser]

Brian,

I must say I'm disillusioned to the point of despondency! I was sure the surface we were seeing was what came straight off the tool -- no sanding needed and no bleeding possible. I keep hearing proper technique and sharp tools will produce a surface that doesn't require sanding. The fact I've never been able to produce such a result hasn't diminished my hope that, one day, I, too, would be able to throw away my sandpaper!

Until now. If you can't do without sanding, what hope have I? Disillusionment and despondency are my new and constant companions. It may be a few days before I feel up to taking nourishment. What's there to live for?

I still like the hollow form, by the way.

[Brian Brown]

I keep hearing proper technique and sharp tools will produce a surface that doesn't require sanding.

Yes, David you're exactly right. Proper technique and sharp tools will produce a surface that doesn't require sanding. And as soon as I have sharp tools, and proper technique, I won't need to sand anymore. I don't think that will be tomorrow. So feel free to take sustenance right away. What the heck... Binge on a full 7 course meal my treat. Have 2 desserts while you are at it.

Just so you know, I am not ashamed to admit, sandpaper is my favorite tool.

Hello, my name is Brian, (Hiiii Brian) and I sanded again yesterday.

[Willard Foster]

Great job!

What tools/techniques did you use to hollow out the inside?

Bill

[Dave Halter]

I think thats a beautiful piece. The wood combination is fantastic.

[Brian Brown]

There was nothing special to hollowing the inside. With a solid piece of wood, you end up hollowing through a smal hole in the top. With a segmented piece, you can cheat. I glue rings together up to the widest point on the vessel, then hollow that portion through the large hole. Then do the same with the top portion. When both are hollowed, sanded and finished, glue the 2 halves together carefully. When the glue is dry, you only need to touch up the glue seam with a bowl gouge through the small hole (the hole was still quite large on this one), and refinish. I just used a bowl gouge for hollowing because I didn't have a hollowing tool. The wife fixed that at Christmas, so I may do it differently in the future.

[Roland Martin]

WOW! I'm new to turning and my opinion can only be based on my absolute love for wood. From what I can see, the joinery is excellent the specie combination is a true winner and the form certainly please my eye. In my opinion, your team of two is outstanding!

[Mark Hubl]

Brian,

Lovely piece. The wood works well together, the curve is spot on and the finial and finish are great. My only comment would be that the lid is a little flat, I would like to see a little more curve up to the finial. Really nice work.

[Michael Jasani]

Beautiful work Brian! I am new to woodturning and can only dream of creating this kind of a piece! Could you enlighten me which photo editing software you use and how did you do the background? Once again great piece, great finish (of course credits go to the better half) :-)

[Bill Bolen]

Simply elegant Brian. Your wood choices work beautifuly together. I've given up trying the bloodwood/maple combo. No dumb luck here, just frustration. Beautiful piece...Bill..

[Baxter Smith]

One of, if not the nicest segmented turnings I have seen! It has it all!

[Brian Brown]

Could you enlighten me which photo editing software you use and how did you do the background?

I use Adobe Photoshop for editing, although there is no manipulation in this image. I like to get it right when I shoot it, so instead of Photoshopping, I have time to turn. The background is a sheet of Formica. For general display of my work, I dislike a white background. I have several sheets (I buy scraps cheap from a local cabinet shop) so i can match them to my turnings. I was going to change the background color a bit on this image, but I took the pic while the wife was waiting to wrap it for Christmas. After Christmas life caught up with me, and I forgot about it. The wife pulled it out and posted it for me.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Brian, you've done a great job with one exception. The cross-grain joint at the top of the staves is probably doomed to some degree of failure. Hopefully, it will only be a tiny ridge that develops because of inconsistent wood movement. There are methods to add a horizontal element to vertical staves without creating cross-grain joinery. This requires building a very short stave-constructed ring and joining it with a half mortise/half tenon type of joint. That provides a side grain to side grain joint within the vessel wall while maintaining consistent wood grain direction. Just something to think about.