Last winter I sucker punched Pat Salter into an exchange. I sent him one of my infamous mushy yucky worm infested chunks of hickory and he sent me a gorgeous lump of avocado. Click here to see what it used to look like.
Ultimately, I decided to go with a hollow form and began hacking away at it in April. I borrowed a friends Sorby Hollowbastard and began to coerce the guts out of it. At that time it was about 11" tall and this meant that I had to open up both ends to empty the interior of its contents. After that was done I epoxied a plug into the bottom that I determined would be invisible in the final form. Yeah, Right!
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So into the DNA bath it went. At that time I vowed that I would not touch the piece again until I'd acquired a proper hollering rig which finally happened in late June. I'd been monitoring the weight closely all this time and was satisfied that she was dry. The exterior had only moved a tiny bit and it was a snap to true it up.
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And then (after practicing on a number of pieces of junkwood with the new hollering rig) I revisited the inside. Trust me when I say that if you spring for a rig yourself one of these days get a laser attachment for it at the same time. Sure wish I had. Talk about nerve wracking!
So anyway it's done.
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To be continued.