Ancient Swamp Kauri Bowl

[Keith Burns]

This bowl is from Ancient Swamp Kauri sent to me by my friend Terry Scott (from New Zealand) and it proved to be a learning experience. The learning came from several fronts. First is the wood. This Kauri is very soft and you don't want to turn it thin as it cracks easily. This started out probably 3/4" taller. The second learning experience was piercing which I had never done before. I wanted something simple but as it turned out, simple is not always easy. Keeping the butterflies the same was difficult (and they are not all the same). Anyway it ended up 5-1/2" diamenter x 2-1/2" tall. The piercing was fun and I will do more but I think it will be easier to do more complex things. Finish is antique oil. Thanks for looking and all comments/critiques are welcome.

[Chris Padilla]

Very cool; I just read that nice article on this ancient wood in the most recent FWW magazine. Nice job!

[Jim Becker]

Wow....lovely wood, great piece and wonderful piercing! Nice!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Wow Keith. Beautiful peircing and beautiful wood.

[Don Carter]

Wow! Keith, that is beautiful! I was going to post a pic of my first coffee scoop but I feel so inadequate....tehe
Thanks for showing it.
All the best.

Don

[Andrew Derhammer]

I was over in NZ two years ago. I remember the one park ranger or w/e was telling us about this tree, the tree sheds it's leaveless limbs, therefor there are no knots in the tree. They grew larger than the redwoods.

BTW nice bowl.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Outstanding bowl Keith! Love the thin form, rich color, small foot and the piercings! The butterflies seem to give the bowl motion - cool effect!

Always a treat to see what you will come up with next! Thanks for sharing!

[Richard Madison]

And an outstanding photo too.