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Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

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Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#1

Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

>Hi Everyone,


Here are some pictures of a natural edge maple burl hollow form I completed this weekend. This is more of the same burl Bill Grumbine gave me. I think this piece is more representative of the kind of figure and "swirl" you get in a maple burl.


This is the first time I've tried turning a natural edge hollow form. To be accurate, it's about the third "real" hollow form I've ever turned. But when I first cut up the burl, I really didn't want to loose the character that the bark gave this piece. So I decided to keep it "natural". It is a bit more tricky thank I originally thought, but not impossible.


Forming the outside was east. Simple bowl gouge work, followed by shear scraping. The internal hollowing was all accomplished with a Scorpion Hollowing tool. I think this was a real test of the tool. Overall, I am very happy with way it performed.


One neat little trick I used on this hollow form was one I picked up from reading Pen Turning websites. The holes left by borers can easily be filled with ca glue and saw dust. But they stop looking like holes. I wanted to maintain this illusion. So I used some dust from a charcoal pencil (used in sketching) and mixed that with sawdust. A drop of thin CA glue was all it took to solidify this mix.




Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow form Specs:



  • Outer dia.: 6 3/4"


  • Max. Height: 7 3/4"


  • Wall thickness: 1/4"


  • Base dia.: 2 5/8"


  • Sanding Method: Dry sanded to 2500 Grit.


  • Finish: Watco's Danish Oil


  • Final: Buffed with Beall System (minus the Tripoli)







I look forward to your comments and critiques.

Thanks for viewing.

See ya around,

My ugly mug

Dominic


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Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#2

Pic #2 

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

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Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#3

Pic #3 

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

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Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#4

Pic #4 

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

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Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#5

Re: Pic #4

Bill Grumbine, Kutztown PA

>Stop Dominic, you're killing me! I am still wading through a bunch of flatwork before I can get to this stuff. Another great bowl!

Bill

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#6

YES!

Joel Hunnicutt

>You nailed the shape! Great job!

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#7

Brad Vietje

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Brad Vietje

>Hey Dom,

Nice N.E. Closed form there, and pretty wood, too!

At the risk of being the cranky perfectionist in the group (and a repetitive one, at that), I'm still wondering which Maple ? This burl looks a lot like Big-Leaf Maple from the Northwest, and a little like Boxelder, but I'm nearly always disappointed when someone just says "Maple", or "Oak" without specifying which one, as there are so many, and each is a little different. I don't want to take away from your fine work, or the excitement of your first N.E. hollow form (which looks like you've done many, and is excellent for a first attempt !), but I suppose I'm using this as an example that illustrates a pet peeve of mine.

Safe Spinning,

Brad Vietje

Thetford, VT

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#8

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Chuck Ludwigsen

>Dom, this is a great piece. Excellent work. The orientation, form, finish, all work for me...

Thanks for sharing this.

Chuck in Memphis, TN.

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#9

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Bill Grumbine, Kutztown PA

>Hi Brad

I'll jump in and answer your question, since I am the one who chopped the tree down. I identified it as a red maple, comparing the leaf and the bark to tree pictures on the web. It was harvested in southeast PA, so for sure it ain't a bigleaf maple! ;-)

Bill

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#10

SQuestion about picture size.

Al Crandall

>Nice work, Dom. I notice that each picture is a different size, but each is just below the maximum limit of 40k bytes. How do you get the file size so uniform?

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#11

Paint shop Pro

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

>Al,

I used Paint Shop Pro's "Resize Image" command to scale the image down until the file size was below 40K. Pretty easy operation too.

See ya,

Dominic

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#12

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Mark Kauder

>Well done my friend - well done.

I like the shape and overall effect.

Critique? There "appears" to be a slight flattening of the curve just below the waist/widest spot, but it is more appearent on the left side because of the shadow, and in fact may be just an illusion caused by the shadow, because it is less noticable on the right side. SO - like Russ is fond of saying - hard to critique from a picture.

My guess is your wife has already said "That one is MINE!"

Mark (green with envy over the burl)

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#13

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

Lee Weed

>Dominic,

Nice job on the form and retaining the natural edge. Dried coffee grounds also works well to fill holes and splits for a deep black color.Fill it with grounds and add CA.

Lee

Re: Natural Edge Maple Burl Hollow Form

#14

Thanks for all the compliments folks!

Dominic Greco in Richboro PA

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