NE maple burl bowl

[Mike Cruz]

This is the bowl that Keller, Peter, and I turned last Friday night. It is 9 1/2" wide and 5" tall (at their widest and tallest). Walnut oil finish with Ren wax buff. C&C welcome.

[Ed Morgano]

That's some pretty work Mike. Keller must not have picked the wood cause I don't see any gaping holes in it. :D

[Doug Reesor]

Very nice job!!! Maple burls are wonderful to work with and this one looks like it was a lot of fun.

[Jeff Nicol]

Mike, You got the character of the piece in the 1st photo showing the highs and lows of the NE, but still hard to get all the beauty of it compared to when it was in my grubby little hands!

For others who have not had the option to touch it, the red spot in the bottom looks just like Amboyna burl and is a nice little accent to the piece. I was helping my co-pilot for the drive out with his first pen turning while the others did this piece, I was so tired it might have ended up as a small ring dish if I had put the gouge to it!


More burls to turn in Mikes wood stash and still hanging on the trees out back, so we will see more of the Maryland burls in Mikes future.

Jeff

[Steve Vaughan]

Nice looking bowl there! Loving that rim and grain!

[Roger Chandler]

Nice collaboration Mike, David and Peter.

[Tim Rinehart]

Very nice, but I think you've forgot that it is in fact very Keller-ish as a hollowform with a massive void at the top:p! Beautiful work guys, LOML gave it the thumbs up as well!

[Steve bellinger]

That's a sharp looking NE you all worked on. Great job all.

[Mike Cruz]

Yeah, I picked the piece, not Keller. Actually, Jeff and I had been looking at this very blank a few hours prior. So, when someone, may have been Peter, said "NE", I knew just which piece to grab...

Collaborations aren't easy. Shapes change. People's preferences, ideas, and visions are different. I know that Peter likes more vertical walls. I know Keller likes voids. Actually, Keller had a hard time "seeing" how the final shape was going to pan out (from how I did the outside). He went in about 1/2 way down on the inside, and was happy to hand the gouge to Peter. But he set a precedent for the inside...that's for sure. I think he wasn't sure what I had "seen" and didn't want to mess that up. Which was very kind, but he could have done "his thing" and I would have simply had to "deal". That's how it goes with collaborations.

Thanks, all, for the kind words. I didn't take the pics. It is already in someone elses hands. So I couldn't post photo tent pics, but I think these capture the bowl just fine.

[Bernie Weishapl]

That is a beauty. Nice job by the 3 of you.

[Kathy Marshall]

Cool looking bowl! Nice job on the collaboration you 3!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Nice work everyone! I really like the jagged natural edge... really make the piece in my eyes!

[Baxter Smith]

Very pretty piece and I am sure it was a lot of fun doing it!

[Mike Cruz]

Thanks, Bernie, Kathy, Steve, and Baxter. I'm not usually a NE guy, but on burly wood, I really like it. I didn't get to do the inside of this one, Baxter, just the outside. But Keller and Peter did, and they looked like they were having fun. Peter got a couple love nips from that edge on his left hand. Prompted a little smirk and a "ooooh!".

[Peter Elliott]

After a long day of shuttles, meet and greet.... I think I said, let's turn something and said let's do a NE bowl. Mike was spot on with the choice, not even a hint of a second thought. We started this pretty late in the evening, dinner around 830pm and then finished this just after 1200am. I know Mike was burned out from the day and I barely made it home with a 20min drive.

Keller on the other hand was still on his time zone although I think we did a good job on hitting hard with some local craft brews. We went right to final thickness per our past discussions with Bill Grumbine on NE bowls..

We talked about burning the edges and you should have seen Keller and I try to light a 1% filled propane tank - that was funny... So no gas, no flame, no burnt edge... still an amazing chunk of wood. This was from the stash that no one wanted to buy from Mike.

Good times...

[Prashun Patel]

Beautiful. I love ne burl forms.

[Mike Cruz]

Thanks, Prashun. Like Peter said, this was one of the pieces that I had up for sale that no one picked up... I've been turning a bunch of it. Thought of posting picks for people to see what they passed up on, but decided against it. I had actually forgotten that this was part of the bunch until Peter mentioned it...

Yeah, um, Peter, sorry about that. I'll have to get a new tank...:o