crotch wood

[Dave Fritz]

I'm wondering how you turn a piece of crotch wood to best show off the feather?

Dave F.

[John Keeton]

Dave, it depends a little on what you want to turn. For a bowl, normally I would cut the crotch down the center such that I end up with two "Y's". Then, the feather will show on the face of each cut. The bottom of the bowl would be the cut face so the feather would show in the bottom of the bowl. The bark side would be the rim.

For a hollow form, one might turn it the opposite way, so the feather runs across the top, or, orient it so the feather is down one side (end grain turning.) It would be difficult to get the feather to show on both sides unless the form was fairly narrow in diameter.

[Dan Forman]

Getting the most out of a crotch requires that you "think outside the bowl. If you use the standard bowl configuration, using the flat of the half log for the rim, you will turn away most of the good stuff. So if you still want to turn a bowl, do the opposite of above, and use the flat of the log for the bottom, the rim from the curved portion. You will lose a lot of diameter because of this, depending on the depth of the bowl - the deeper it is, the smaller diameter it will have.

To get the maximum effect, a platter or very shallow bowl will preserve the most feather and yield the largest diameter. For a bowl, steep sides with a wide bottom, like a dogfood dish, will preserve the most feather, but is not always the most attractive. I generally go for a platter or shallow bowl to get the most out of a crotch piece. It can take some discipline, because sometimes I don't want to sacrifice so much of the size of a piece, but ultimately it's the overall impact that is most important.

If you come across a very large crotch, you may be able to turn a good sized bowl with good figure all the way up the sides, plus a candy dish out of each half of the log.

Dan

[Bruce Pratt]

A variation on John's approach - turn a winged bowl, preserving all three ends of the "Y". That way, you won't lose any of the feather, maybe just some skin on your knuckles....

[Dave Fritz]

Thank you so much. I want to turn a platter and try to preserve as much feather as possible. I'm thinking of using a glue block instead of a tenon to save as much of the bottom as possible. Actually I have both halves so I think I'll do one each way.

Thanks again,

Dave F.