This has been one "doozie" of a week. Started out with a spalted maple piece that was going to be a vase. Got it turned down to the shape I wanted but found that a large area of the wood was so punky that there was no saving it. But then I got the idea to dremmel out the really bad parts and fill them with epoxy paste. We'll see how that one goes…
Next I "turned" my attention to a piece of funky Aussie wood I got off a guy on ebay. It was supposed to be another vase with a small opening and a fairly tall ebony collar. Had it down to a bit over an eighth thick because I wanted to be able to see through the voids in the wood. But there was this little ridge on the inside that you could feel with your finger and it was really bugging me. In the process of trying to get rid of it, I got the top way too thin. A light pull and off it came and none too cleanly either. So then I thought "what the heck" and took my gouge to the "rim" thinking I could still get a bowl like thing out of it. That didn't work out too bad. But then when I started to sand the inside, the pad popped off the shank of my little disk sander and knocked the "bowl" into three pieces. OK, out comes the epoxy. I actually managed to get the thing glued back together and I offer it here not as an example of fine lathe work but more as a testament to stubbornness...
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