Punky Maple Hollow Form

[Bill Grumbine]

Greetings all

Sometimes procrastination helps, and sometimes you wonder if you should have just put it off a little longer. This is a piece of maple burl that got left out in the weather by accident. It is beautiful stuff, but boy was it a challenge to cut, and I am not sure I like the final product. I had to soak it real good with Minwax Wood Hardener to get it to cut well, and hollowing, while easy, left a very rough surface on the inside. I usually don't worry too much about that, but it seems that more and more people think that they should be sanding the insides of hollow forms! :eek: Let's hope that customers don't start to think that way!

It is relatively easy to see inside when you look through the hole where the bark inclusion used to be (although not in the picture). It is rough rough rough, but there is not much I am going to do about it. Rough it is, and rough it is going to stay. This piece is fragile and I am not going to booger it all up with a sanding disk. I will just have to find a customer who doesn't know about the requirement to sand the insides. It is finished with Bush Oil, and I am trying to figure out what else might help it. There is some MWH from the soak that is making some of the points on the NE shiny, but I am not sure how to either buff them down or bring up the shine on the rest of the piece. Suggestions anyone?

Thanks for taking a look.

[Bob Noles]

Hi Bill,

I think it turned out pretty good for what you had to work with. Only you would have took on a challenge that difficult and seen it totally thru.

Nice Job!

[Paul Engle]

oooh Bill , by the way send that piece of burl to Idaho and I can finish it ...:eek: :D . Stunning, just stunning ...who cares about the inside for cryinoutloud....:D , more and more collectors are after the " natural look " anyway.

[Jim Becker]

Very interesting piece, Bill! Worth the effort.

(Put eyes on the second picture and you have an interesting caricature...LOL!)

[Lee DeRaud]

Very nice as-is...

There is some MWH from the soak that is making some of the points on the NE shiny, but I am not sure how to either buff them down or bring up the shine on the rest of the piece. Suggestions anyone?Maybe wipe down the outside with thin CA? That shines up nicely after some 600-grit sanding and would also strengthen the piece somewhat.

[Christopher K. Hartley]

First off let me say that I love it! Now, as to a finishing touch...just add a streamer of white tissue paper coming out of the top with blue letters saying "Grumbine Kiss" :cool: (see below) and a little foil wrap. Then call it Maple Flavored and you are all set to go. All kidding aside, Beautiful!!!

[Curt Fuller]

That's one of those pieces that whatever you had to do was worth the effort. That's really nice!

[Joash Boyton]

Hi, Mr. Grumbine....

Excellent piece, so is that finish staight off of the chisel?

Don't worry about the natural look, I took my work into a a gallery the other day, and they said the more splits/defects etc:, the more inclined people were to buy it....Perth is one of the most modern/trendy cities in Australia..

Looks Great,

Joash

[Brett Baldwin]

Looks like Christopher and I thnk alike. The shape reminded me of a Hershey's Kiss too, though I wouldn't be tempted to eat that one.;)

I'll bet that would be a piece that you could look at a hundred times and never see the same thing twice. Well done.

[Brad Kimbrell]

Bill, that thing has a hole in it that I believe I can patch if you send it to me right away! :p

Very nice! I hope to learn to hollow even solid forms some day without being terrified of a catch...

I'm just learning but I do know what I like and your turning is definitely one of those things!

Thanks for the inspiring pics...

[Gary DeWitt]

Beautiful piece, Bill. I'm not sure I would risk messing with the finish, looks good in the pics. That said, if you are trying to flatten the gloss on those NE points, one thing that comes to mind is airbrushing satin or flat clear on just the points you want to affect.
I'm slowly coming around to the idea there is no bad piece of wood, as long as it will hang together long enough to turn. Thanks for the reminder.

[Bill Grumbine]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone.

I had this on the show and tell table with two other pieces last night, and one of the newer people said to me, "Do you turn anything that doesn't have holes and cracks in it? All the books say to start with a solid clean piece of wood!" I replied that the books were right, start with a solid clean piece, but as Joash says, people really like the defects that show up.

About that big hole. It was bigger for a while, since I blew the side clean off from the hole on up. But, I found the piece and glued it back in. There is so much going on it is virtually impossible to see the glue line.

Holes actually make it easier to turn a hollow form, since it helps with chip removal, and it makes it easier to see where you need to cut. It is easier than you might think to keep the tool from sticking out through that hole as the piece is spinning. Now, making you own hole with the tool is a different story...

Thanks again for taking the time to write.

Bill