Rosewood burl dish

[John Keeton]

I have a few Honduran Rosewood burls, and considered making a lidded dish from one of them, along with a finial. As soon as I cut into it, I discovered that was was all sapwood:(, and it was spalted (near punky):):(:confused:. - kind of interesting, but troublesome. It was on the lathe, and I wasn't quite sure whether to continue, but finally decided to see how it would progress. I first formed a tenon on the top portion and parted it out to use for a lid in the event things went well. However, the more I cut into this piece, the more disappointed I became. Not only was there little excitement to the wood, but getting a clean cut was short of impossible with the softness of much of it.

I abandoned the idea of a lid, and just went with a simple (ogee again!) dish, and decided some color was a necessity. First, I applied Transtint bright red, then a mix of two parts black, and one part blue to tone down the red. I am actually very happy with the color, though I fought to get a good finish on this one with many, many coats of shellac and then many coats of WOP. It is still far from perfect, but not too bad.

I included a pic of the piece that was parted out just to show the raw wood - complete with lousy white balance! But, you get the idea - pretty drab.

Nothing special here, but just thought I would share my efforts at saving an otherwise uninspiring piece of wood. Feel free to comment!

[Tim Rinehart]

Quite the save John!! That's a beautiful end result, hard to believe it came from first pic. I get frustrated when I put some thought and effort into a piece of wood that ends up punky inside...I'll get the Pentracryl and other stuff out when worth it...but usually end up pitching into sawdust pile.
Superb color and finish!

[Tom Winship]

John, I really like it. You should call it "Never Surrender" or somesuch.
Tom

[Bob Rotche]

Fantastic save! Hard to believe its the same piece of wood. Well worth the effort.

[Allan Ferguson]

Gorgeous color and figure.

[David E Keller]

Neat piece, John! It looks like your final color was very close to what I expect from that burl... A long way from where it started.

[Ed Morgano]

Beautiful job as usual. You really have an eye for things.

[John Keeton]

Thanks, guys! This one was a recovery mission, and an experiment in color. To that end, it came out better than expected!

[jwjerry w kowalski]

I love it, very striking, a real eye grabbe!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beautiful piece John and a great save.

[Kathy Marshall]

Beautiful John! I really like the end result and I love the dye job! Just goes to show even a "bad" piece of wood can have great potential (as this one surely did!)

[Doug W Swanson]

Great save on this one! The dye job really makes this piece stand out!

[Baxter Smith]

Amazing change in the wood John. Thanks for posting the before picture!

[Cathy Schaewe]

You did a heck of a job. What are the dimensions, did I miss that?

[George Guadiane]

Really? "nothing special here?"
You made strawberry lemonade out of premium lemon!
(the wood was certainly worth the effort)

[John Keeton]

Thanks, all! Cathy, it is about 8" edge to edge, but is closer to 9+" measured from the center point to the far edge (doubled, of course).

[Steve Schlumpf]

Wow - this I like!! Really like the flared NE lip and the color was a great idea! Sure made a heck of a difference - in a good way!!

[Bob Bergstrom]

Beautiful dye job John. The dark colors and highlights go together so well. Thanks for sharing

[Jim Burr]

Hmmm...the dye contraption is really fun. So...shape is good as you already know...colors really make everything pop, the blue is so understated that an artist put it in...as you know. Very well done sir!!

[Jeff Nicol]

John, The color turned out great, and it really lets the figure in the burl show up more. You sound like me, I hate to let something get the best of me and keep pushing on no matter how bad the wood is. I have given up on a couple of cherry burls that were so punky and bug riddled that I could not save them without a ton of glue and TLC.

Cool shape and so far so good, you will get it to the sheen you want,

Jeff

[Curt Fuller]

John you still amaze me! I would normally consider it woodturning blasphemy to even consider adding all that color to a burl. But the results are just so darned nice that I have to hand it to you, you are a true master with the dye. I've never actually seen a rosewood burl of any kind, but from turned pieces I've seen I would have expected the raw color to me more like your finished bowl and nothing like the yellow color in the piece you've pictured. I'm always amazed at how many variation there can be to the same kinds of wood. That's a beautiful bowl!