Second and Third Hollow Forms

[Eric Holmquist]

Myrtle Hollow Form pierced and airbrushed metallic Candy Apple Red. Could not get the color balance right in the photo which makes it more pink looking. Around 5" (13 cm) tall. My second hollow form. This offered a couple challenges. The wood really needed an oil finish to bring out its beauty, but that made paint adhesion tricky even with an interface coat of Shellac. My first experiment with Candy colors. Final finish is EM6000 waterborne lacquer.

229731

Poplar Hollow Form dyed in a Chris Pytlik style. I saw a demo on this technique by Chris at Totally Turning 2012 and decided to give it a try. Around 6" (15 cm) tall. My third hollow form. Bleaching this prior to dying proved to be a challenge. I used Hood 2 part bleach, and that got rid of the green streaks, but left some red streaks. Finished with EM6000 waterborne lacquer.

229732

[charlie knighton]

your form is definitely getting there, keep experimenting

[John Keeton]

Eric, I like the concept of the pierced piece, but the edge of the painted area is distracting to an otherwise very nice piece. Not sure what the answer is to that??

Looks like you did some excellent work on both pieces, though. You are on a roll!

[Roland Martin]

Very nice pieces, the pierced Myrtle piece is certainly unique, I like it.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Eric those are nice. I do like that first one.

[Bill Wyko]

I really like both of them. Very creative and beautiful forms.

[Jason Ritchie]

Eric those are nice! I have yet to try a hollow form but I am looking forward to trying when my new lathe gets in. What tool did you use to pierce the wood? Would a dremel work? I think it would be cool to try placing a small LED candle in the bottom of the first one. I bet it would cast some neat light and shadows out of the holes!

[Eric Holmquist]

Thank you everyone

One thing I observed in the whole dye process is that the dye flowed well through the end grain of most of the poplar, but where the poplar had green streaks, there was almost no flow. I bleached the whole piece with two applications of Hood two part bleach over 24 hours to remove the green color in order to start with a whiter base. I've got several more 4x4 blanks milled and ready to turn for further dye experiments before I start trying it on burls.

John - There are two things about the painted areas on that piece that bother me. First, in an effort to ensure an opaque base for the metalic candy color, I started with Gesso. Gesso is fairly thick, I then sprayed Titanium white, an Aluminum metal flake base then finally the Candy Apple Red. The result is a rather thick paint layer that is very visible. In retrospect, the aluminum base is quite opaque itself, next time around, I will skip the Gesso and Titanium White and just use Aluminum Base and Candy Color. Secondly while I think the design of the collar works fairly well, the base does not work as well. If I had made the edges of the colored triangles parallel with the inverted pierced teardrops, it would have worked better.

[Eric Holmquist]

Eric those are nice! I have yet to try a hollow form but I am looking forward to trying when my new lathe gets in. What tool did you use to pierce the wood? Would a dremel work? I think it would be cool to try placing a small LED candle in the bottom of the first one. I bet it would cast some neat light and shadows out of the holes!

Jason,

Normally I use an NSK Presto to do my piercing, but for recent piercings, I have been experimenting with a cheap alternative.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?183535-Cheap-Piercing-Tool-Experiment&highlight=

While a Dremel MIGHT work, I think you will get too frustrated with it. The NSK and my cheap alternative operate at 300,000+ RPM. They cut fairly quickly with almost no vibration and no "pull". The NSK has no vibration at all, and except for the dentist office whistle it makes, you can't tell it is on when holding it. The cheap alternative is a bit noisier but nothing like a Dremel, also it has a very slight vibration, not enough to make your hand go numb, but just enough that you can tell it is on.

I've tried piercing with my Optima micromotor which is 45,000 RPM, quiet and low vibration, and it is much slower to pierce. I suspect that the vibration / noise of a Dremel would drive you mad before you finished the task.

I've been tempted to get some of those lights to try that experiment. The next time I'm near a party store I might look for some. What diameter is the base? The opening in the top of the pierced piece is 1 1/8" (3cm), not sure if they fit in a hole that small, or if I could get it back out when the battery died.