John Spitters
11-02-2011, 10:20 AM
This is another piece of the figured Big Leaf Maple that has turned out to be perhaps one of my most challenging pieces.
It started out as a hump or onion type burl, but when cut off it revealed that it was actually a growth over a few broken or cut off branches from when the tree was yet young. It's been sitting in a corner of my shop for apx. the past two years and as it turns out it was as dry as popcorn.
I purposely cut out the round blank so that some of the bark voids would be visible in the finished piece, I must have studied as to exactly how to centre the cutout for more than an hour before I succumbed it to the bandsaw, the roughed out disk started out at 15 1/4" dia. by apx 8 1/2" deep. What has made this piece so difficult is that the grain is / was so wild and extreamly difficult to get a clean cut, no matter what method I tried or how sharp my tools were, this wood was also very HARD and the rotten branch stubs inside the blank didn't help matters. Then as I worked my way closer to the inside bottom I began to wonder just how far one of these branch stubs would go. I had to do some creative thinking on how to shape the bowl so that it would still have a bottom to it, and being able to completely turn away that branch stub so that I would have a clean inside bottom.
The walls of the piece are also slightly thicker but that was done purposely so that I could incorporate the bark voids but still have a bowl that was intact and clean inside.. The goop that you see me putting on is colored epoxy, this was done to stabilize the one rotten branch stub that was at the top of the bowl rim and protruded through to the inside.
Finished size will be apx. 14 3/4"w x 7"h
I still have work to do on the inside with filling some holes with epoxy but I couldn't wait to see just how the end product may look, so I applied a coat of oil for a little inspiration
John
It started out as a hump or onion type burl, but when cut off it revealed that it was actually a growth over a few broken or cut off branches from when the tree was yet young. It's been sitting in a corner of my shop for apx. the past two years and as it turns out it was as dry as popcorn.
I purposely cut out the round blank so that some of the bark voids would be visible in the finished piece, I must have studied as to exactly how to centre the cutout for more than an hour before I succumbed it to the bandsaw, the roughed out disk started out at 15 1/4" dia. by apx 8 1/2" deep. What has made this piece so difficult is that the grain is / was so wild and extreamly difficult to get a clean cut, no matter what method I tried or how sharp my tools were, this wood was also very HARD and the rotten branch stubs inside the blank didn't help matters. Then as I worked my way closer to the inside bottom I began to wonder just how far one of these branch stubs would go. I had to do some creative thinking on how to shape the bowl so that it would still have a bottom to it, and being able to completely turn away that branch stub so that I would have a clean inside bottom.
The walls of the piece are also slightly thicker but that was done purposely so that I could incorporate the bark voids but still have a bowl that was intact and clean inside.. The goop that you see me putting on is colored epoxy, this was done to stabilize the one rotten branch stub that was at the top of the bowl rim and protruded through to the inside.
Finished size will be apx. 14 3/4"w x 7"h
I still have work to do on the inside with filling some holes with epoxy but I couldn't wait to see just how the end product may look, so I applied a coat of oil for a little inspiration
John