Vicki bowl part 2

8/1/2010

The piece has been sitting in my shop calling me..."Turn me!"  I have been seeing all these wonderful things on Wood Central that professional turners have done and I am very impressed and a little depressed that mine will not be that impressive.   But I have resolved that I will do what I can do.  

Today I weighed it and it lost 32% of its weight.  This should be fine, though I rarely weigh them this is a special project...right.  I rounded the tenon and then put it in the chuck.    I trued up the outside and then the inside.  I had liked the curve on the roughed out form with a slight curve at the top and slightly more curve at the bottom, but by the time I trued it up it had a nice curve that I liked a lot.  I then went to the inside to follow the outside curve.  I made it a little thicker than I would normally because I knew that when I try and get greedy on a special project I often make a mistake and it doesn't work out, so better safe than sorry.  I also don't know what thickness would work best with my burning. 

I rough sanded the inside but didn't worry about finishing it.  I didn't sand the outside yet, but I did put lines on it.  I used the indexing of the lathe and drew lines to give me equally spaced lines.  I then played with my design. 

OK, My idea on the design....  I have never put designs on my work.  I have worked on burning lines on ornaments with wire to mainly hide my joint, and I put circles in the base of many bowls but never as a major design element.  When I pulled out the wood the other larger piece had a stick figure design.  I think of him as the "man in the tree."  As I spent time trying to figure out what I can do with this piece of wood, I kept coming back to the "man" and how the tree was used for kids climbing and playing.  I also keep thinking about the project of many people coming together.  So my thought is to have "the man in the tree" holding hands around the bowl, like kids playing ring around the (rosey) tree or all those people helping with the project.

8/6/2010
I looked at this design for several days...I had several options as I saw them. I could leave it as it is, I could add head like designs on it to make it look more like people, or burn in that line I penciled in to give me a max. I didn't like it as it is, the heads, though cute in small quantities, are not quite what I was looking for, so I opted to put the line across the top.

I like the design.  I could have done a better job, with practice, of the burning but I think it gives that kid quality like the kids that climbed it for so many years.




My burning tool isn't exactly state of the art.  I got it in the mid 70's as part of a wood-burning kit for kids.  I have since lost the screw on tips but have been using this to put my "signature" in my bowls for several years.  There used to be a cork ring around where the tape is because it gets quite warm there.