spruce burl work in progress done

Thanks Kevin The trick with the bark inclusions is to get a burl that has formed on the branch. I find the trunk burls on spruce, although larger, have little grain development, bark inclusions, or other enhancements. The change when the finish hits the spruce bark and the rich chocolate brown pops out is quite dramatic. There is another one on the way. I will try to get some pages up soon.

I like the form shape, and I really liked the bark and inclusions. Good job! And I think the whole presentation of your project and how you did it from start to finish is top shelf as well.

I like the "bull's eye" of the branch. I look for pieces like that as down south here we have very little spalted or highly figured woods that are readily available. We have almost no "firewood pile" finds, believe me. So the more interesting pieces tend to be ones with inclusions, knots, worm holes, fungus discolorations, etc.

A couple of years ago I took a branch of sycamore about 10" in diameter and cut it 10" long. The wood was ivory in color and the heartwood was a medium brown.

I mounted the wood in the lathe with the grain perpendicular to the ways, like you would for a traditional bowl, and turned a vase.

I though it was really neat as it came out as a cross section of the tree with all the growth rings visible on two sides. Strangely, after letting it dry in shavings (until I remembered it) for about 10 months, it never deformed.

The club guys were mixed in their reviews. About 75% of the guys had never seen that, and they didn't like it because that wasn't a proper form. I had mounted it wrong to begin with. But some of the younger guys went back to their lathes and turned some larger branch or trunk wood with that orientation and loved the look.

So much to my delight, we had some pieces come back that were oriented "incorrectly" for a few months. It was good to see barely tolerant (and puzzled) looks of some of the guys when those pieces were passed around. I personally thought they complimented the usual plethora of bowls, boxes, platters and candlesticks very nicely.

AMEN, brother. After all, it's all about the fun, right?

Robert

Absolutely. There is something >else< I haven't tried. I would love to see a piece self distort like that as it gives shapes only nature can provide. And I never thought of how that would distort evenly or unevenly if mounted a certain way. Food for thought, for sure.

I bought an old microwave at a garage sale a few years ago on the cheap and used it to experiment with microwave drying. I managed to make a mess... ummm... errr.... add artistic dimension to my turnings as they distorted wildly in the microwave. Talk about rustic looking; heck, I even set a couple on fire!

I call that my pyrography phase if anyone sees that small vase though, so I am covered.

Robert