The studious reader of this blog will remember that about 4 months ago I got hold of an entire trunk of a rather large sycamore, all of which was (and still is) rippled quite strongly. The classical dish in the last post was made from that wood, and so are the two pieces in today’s post.
First up is a almost flat, and not quite square dish, doused in red spirit stain and finished with acrylic lacquer. I cut 2 grooves into the wood to emphasize the squished rectangle shape, but I think I need to enhance these grooves with some black.
As usual, the trick with these is to turn them in stages, so that the material doesn’t get much of a chance to wobble away from the tool. This is about 5mm thick, and shows a fair degree of flexing towards the corners. Now, contrary to what you may believe, the grain in this dish actually runs horizontally, despite the heavy rippling wanting to make you think otherwise.
The other piece is this hollow form. It was made from a block that still had some bark attached to it, and some of it is still on the finished form. Again, the heavy rippling may want to make you think this is turned from end grain, but in reality this is side grain. This piece is surprisingly heavy, mostly because my hollowing tools couldn’t reach any further. Again, yellow spirit stain and acrylic lacquer.
A few more pics to show the beautiful figure in the wood:
And the best thing about all this is: these were made from off-cuts. The really nice big discs are still to come. Watch this space.