Crotch-wood orientation ?

4/8/04, 11:22 PM #1

Shawn - in CT
Guest

Crotch-wood orientation ?

Shawn - in CT

>Just turned my first crotch pieces tonight (white birch) and WOW(!) what beautiful figuring and character. Now I am stuck wondering what the best orientation is for a bowl to capture/keep the most of the 'fire'. I cut down the piths and roughed two bowls that would have been oriented opening toward each other (i.e like a sphere in the original crotch). I'm wondering if turning that around (i.e., bowl feet together on the pith side; natural edge orientation) would maintain more 'fire' in the final bowl. Maybe there is yet a better way?

Re: Crotch-wood orientation ?

4/9/04, 12:27 AM #2

Ruth
Guest

Re: Crotch-wood orientation ?

Ruth

>Shawn,

Go to Darrell Feltmate's website. He did a nice page on crotch wood orientation with some good pictures.

He just got a new server, posted here about a week ago. If you can't find it, he's on my links page: www.torne-lignum.com/links

Ruth

Re: Crotch-wood orientation ?

4/9/04, 3:47 AM #3

Doug Trembath
Member
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428 posts

Registered: 3/8/04

Re: Crotch-wood orientation ?

Doug Trembath

>Shawn, I've been doing a study of crotches lately, and have gotten some wonderful results orienting them in different schemes. The one I like best is turning hollow vessels with the two piths opposite each other, so the flame and figure seems to grow out of the bottom and follow the sides as they curve up. Even the dreaded oaks exhibit some incredible results.

To answer your original question, however, yes, it's best to orient the bottoms of the bowls toward the pith. Otherwise, you lose the flame as it gets cut away getting to the bottom of the bowl. You often lose depth on the finished bowl, but the flame manifests itself better. What tradeoffs we are subjected to, huh?

Doug Trembath

Studio in the Woods

Re: Crotch-wood orientation ?

4/9/04, 11:04 AM #4

Shawn - in CT
Guest

Great, thanks!

Shawn - in CT

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Crotch-wood orientation ?

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