Doan look nuttin like what I thought....

[David DeCristoforo]

But for what it's worth, here is my latest attempt at a "stoppered bottle".

It's 10.5" tall plus another five for the lid/finial and about 6" in diameter at the top.

226012 226013

Fire away.....

[John Keeton]

Great colors, David!!! I like the transition on this one much better. The detailing and flow of the finial is perfect IMO, though a bit long for my tastes. However, this is part of your style and it certainly works well.

Great piece, and a nice diversion from your amphora series.

[Roger Chandler]

What is the wood on this one David? [I'm guessing Big leaf maple] Very elegant finial and smooth transition to the base of the finial as well. With your skill I would not have expected any less. This is both pretty and unique..........love the swirl in the grain and you need to tell us about how you finished this one as well.

[Steve Vaughan]

Yup, I like it too, and would like to know something about your finish.

[Roland Martin]

The form and finish on this is superb, but the finial simply amazing. Really good work, David, and a great spread in WD.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Great shape and color. I really appreciate how the throat just disappears into the finial. And ending the finial with a ball as versus a tiny point is both original and pleasing to the eye. You have a gift for design, my friend.
faust

[James Roberts]

That is just beautiful! Great form and a great piece of wood. Oh, and congrats again on the write-up in Woodturning Design magazine. Keep producing like this and I'm sure there will be more.

[charlie knighton]

very nice, i really like this form, the double finale pretty nifty also

[Tim Rinehart]

Very nicely done...I love the form (recent favorite of mine also) but have not had great success at a nicely flowing finial, but your flow of the finial and proportion is extremely well done. So...not bad DD!;)

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

The forms a beauty David. Love the flow & wood too. Some thing about the finial I'm not crazy about though. I can't really explain why though either.

[Rick Markham]

Super cool Double D! I like the transition, it makes a nice inflection point. It's been since Christmas since I turned a lidded box, I need to get off my butt and put my photo set up back up, so I can post some of the things I've been working on.

I like how the color turned out, It isn't exactly what you had envisioned in your photoshop, but it shows of the figure exceptionally well. Incidentally I couldn't bring myself to color the "other half" of the two forms I was making. Maybe next time! My hats off to you sir, for "going for it" ;)

I love the two sided stopper, Is it multiple parts? or is it a single piece?

[Kathy Marshall]

That's a beauty David! Love the form and the finial and the wood, color and grain is awesome!

[Sid Matheny]

I do like it! You did good DD.

Sid

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beautiful piece and finial is outstanding.

[Jon McElwain]

Well, I don't think I would put any whiskey in that stoppered bottle, but other than that, it is a way cool piece! What did you use for the finial (material and color)? I like the "purple haze" look to the finial. A lot going on with that grain too.

[Michelle Rich]

is the vessel purple-ish & the finial too? or is it my monitor? if it is, I really like the color. this stands out & is very much an eye-popper.

[Bob Rotche]

Awesome job, David! This is about as good as it gets. Can't quite tell what color it is but the figure is fantastic. Would love to hear more about your dye and finish.

[Wally Dickerman]

Well David, I've examined this piece as well as I could and I haven't detected a flat spot in the curve. I like the curve into the foot. No rule of thirds here. The finial is half the length of the vessel. The widest part of the vessel is perhaps 1/4th down from the top. The bottom may be 1/3 the vessel width. Put it all together and it works to near perfection. Rules are made to be broken.

I like the finial. One of Cindy D's "rules" is that there should be no two dimensions alike. This one fits her rule. So you did apply a rule.:)
And the wood...WOW

Oops...I'm wrong. If the vessel is 10 inches tall and the finial is 5 inches tall, for a total of 15 inches...you did use the rule of thirds

[Bill Bolen]

Gorgeous piece. That grain just brings this piece to life. "Feels like" some type of stone to me. What kind of wood is it if I might ask?

[Josh Bowman]

David, I think to my eye, I like that most of all.

[Steve Schlumpf]

David - not sure what you had in mind but this sure is pretty! Great form and your double-ended finial sure adds a twist to the standard final fare! Love the colors, the grain pattern and the finish! Looks like it will fit right in with someone's art collection!

Very nice work!! Thanks for sharing!

[David DeCristoforo]

The "story"

Things have been a bit hectic around here lately . Yesterday I barely had time to get pics of this thing posted. So here is "the story" and, hopefully answers to some of the questions…

I have attempted several of these deep hollow forms over the last year and a half. As I posted them, I have gotten some critiques from a number of "acknowledged masters" of this type of form as well as many other turners with far more experience than I have. Much of this has been softened with comments like "it's a small nit to pick" but we all know that those small nits can make or break a turning. On this one, I have attempted to incorporate as many of those suggestions as I could. The lower portion of the form is much fuller than my previous efforts and the bottom is rounder. The shoulder, although still much higher than is "typical", has been dropped a bit and softened. I also paid much closer attention to the transition from the form into the lid/finial. I am trying to follow as many of the commonly accepted "rules" while, at the same time, end up with a form that does not look just like everyone else's. I still think there is much room for improvement.


I have also done several pieces with finials. I have yet to master these either but, again, there have been a lot of good suggestions along the way. What I tried to do with this one is to make sure that there were no flat spots and that the curve from bottom to top was "sweet". As to the ball, there's a bit of a story behind that too. When I first started to make finials, I was putting sharp points on them like most do. But my wife, who has spent the better part of her life, in one way or another, looking the the health and well being of children, was horrified by the danger potential of those "spears". So the next one I made had a ball on top as has every one since. She still is not totally enamored of finials in general (she calls them "spires") but she accepted the compromise. I seem to have trended toward making the balls larger and the finials more exaggerated. Again, I am looking for "my own voice".


Now as to the coloring, that was pretty much intentional. I set out to make a lavender toned form with a violet lid/finial. But once I got into this piece of maple burl, I began the think that this might not be the best piece to try it on. There was so much figure and natural color that I feared any dye would obscure it. I posted a pic of the rough turned piece and got a lot of input, some saying leave it alone and some saying go for the color. But I wanted to try it so i colored the piece while I still had enough wood to take the color off again if I did not like it. After much debate, I decided to go ahead figuring that I still had the "other half" of this piece of burl to do an "au natural" piece later. I realized right away, this was not going to be a "slap it on and sand it back" dye job. It was a lot easier to apply a color layer in photoshop than it was to actually get the color on the wood without obscuring the figure and tonal variations. After several unsuccessful attempts, I ended up sealing the wood with lacquer and then burning in the color using alcohol dye and a "rubber" in a similar manner to that used in French polishing. The coloring and finishing took quite a bit more time than the actual turning did.

OK… I just realized I'm getting close to a book here. Sorry. Thanx to everyone for all the kind words.

[Jamie Donaldson]

You have accented the figure of the wood perfectly! I usually start with a black dye wash to pop the grain, then sand back to apply additional colors, so I'm curious about the sequence of your color applications?

[David DeCristoforo]

"...I'm curious about the sequence of your color applications..."

Well there's really only one color. I mixed red and blue dye until I had the color I wanted which was a deep lavender. I tried a heavy application followed by "sanding back" but this did not produce the effect I had envisioned which was more of a glaze. Next I tried air brushing the dye but this did not really work out either. Then I remembered that when I did a lot of furniture and cabinetry and lacquer finishing, we used alcohol dyes to glaze and tone. So I gave the piece several good coats of lacquer and then started "burning in" the dye. While this was still not quite what I was after, the effect was really accentuation the figure and pulling out all of the tonal variations in the wood. All of this was done while there was still a lot of material to be removed so that I could still have a "clean slate" for each "experiment" and again once the piece was brought to final shape.

[Jamie Donaldson]

Air brushing generally doesn't penetrate but sits on the surface, and there is a world of difference when the dye is mixed with H2O rather than alcohol. Wet layering with water blends the colors, while layering dry builds layers of color, and when sanded back yields a completely different color scheme. It takes lots of practice to predict the results, and I'm still playing and can only guess at an approximate final color most of the time!.

[Michael E. Thompson]

I really like this piece. Finial is perfect. Really inspiring.

Mike

[David DeCristoforo]

"...It takes lots of practice..."

I used to think I would live long enough to learn everything I wanted to learn. Considering my present age, the number of things so far learned and those still to go, I'm not so sure.