orienting grain in a peice, and what to make?

[curtis rosche]

how do you decide how to orient the grain in a peice? i cut off a blank yesterday to start turning it round, with intentions of turning it into a hollowform, but im not sure what i should do with it.
the one side of the peice is spaulted, there is fiddleback figure through most of the peice. what should i make out of this peice? a bowl, a hollowform, a platter or 2 ? and which side should be the top?. you can see the figure on the one face in the picture, but you cant see it as well on the other face, but there is some figure there too.

this peice of wood is a small peice that came from those 2 very large maple crotches that i cut up in the begining of the summer. this isnt even a crotch peice, its just full of figure though.

[David E Keller]

I'd like to see a squat hollow form... That form always looks good to me when the wood has a lot of curl and figure.

[curtis rosche]

which side should go up?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Interesting piece of wood Curtis! If you decide on turning a hollow form - just me - but I would have the gnarly side (first photo) be the top of the form. Most of everything is going to get turned away anyway - just try to locate where all the figure is and have that towards the top and shoulder area where most folks will see it.

[curtis rosche]

thats what i was thinking Steve. the one side of the blank goes down kinda far,, should i turn out that spot, or leave it as a small bit of natural edge?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Curtis - turn it and see what it looks like as you progress. You can always leave it - especially if it leaves a lot of figured grain - and it just adds to the character! Have fun with it!

[Wally Dickerman]

which side should go up?

Generally speaking, the fancy figure in a blank should be in the upper part of a hollow form and in the bottom portion in an open bowl.

Wally

[Roger Wilson]

Here's a pdf that might provide some help:


http://www.northwoodturners.com/pdf/Bowl_Blanks_from_Log.pdf

[David Peebles]

Roger,

I have seen this posted several times in the last few weeks.

I feel it is important to give credit to the creator. It is from a hand out that I and many others received several years ago. It is from Todd Hoyer.

I believe that it should be credited to him. You may want to pass this along to Northwoodturners.com

Best wishes,

Dave

P.S. That is a great source to really understand what can be done with the logs we can sometimes find.

[curtis rosche]

thanks for the input guys, hopefully i can get this peice done today. i have most of the day to spend in the shop