Most rootball turnings go on the lathe straight from the ground, left natural and rough. The maker here usually works that way too, but this time took a different path: the entire root was encased in resin before any turning began. Without the resin the finished piece would have been tiny, and casting felt like a better way to show off the root structure. That reasoning makes sense to me, and the result backs it up.
The build started outdoors, where a pressure washer stripped soil and debris off the stump on a gravel surface. Roots marked with a Sharpie were trimmed with a Japanese-style hand saw until the root could fit a clear plastic bucket used as the mold. Resin was poured around the wood and left to cure, then the solid blank went on the lathe, was turned round, and was given a base tenon. After remounting, a four-jaw chuck held it while gouges hollowed the inside and shaped the outer cone, and a hand scraper smoothed the bowl.
What stands out is the resin itself: translucent red, copper, and white pearlescent epoxy swirled around the wood. Cutting through the cured blank revealed the inner grain patterns, and a multi-wheel polishing arbor brought up the shine, with polish worked in on a blue cloth while the bowl spun. The finished flared cone shows a real balance between the resin swirls and the root wood grain.
One open question remains: the maker believes the rootball came from a rhododendron bush but is not certain of the species. Even unidentified, the wood clearly earns its place in the piece.
Project by Andy Phillip. Watch it on their YouTube channel: