Where is everyone?

Re: Where is everyone?

I check in from time to time but really don't have anything to report - not even a good screw-up . Maybe those who are getting real spring weather are tending to their outdoor activities and duties.

Bill

Re: Where is everyone?

I'm here Professor Donaldson.

Just came in from the shop.  Have a bunch of ort bowls to turn which are due next month.  So I am thankful for the warm weather.  

I don't do cold very well.

Re: Where is everyone?

I was wondering the same thing.  

I'll do my bit here:  

I'm a fan of Japanese tea cups. I'm a fan of the kurinuki process of ceramic art -- it's a subtractive process much akin to wood carving.  I'm buying kurinuki pieces from a Ukrainian potter -- Mikhail Tovstous whose "Discovery" series I find enlightening.  I'm also a fan of black-on-black ceramics in the mode of Maria Martinez or modern Santa Clara work.  So I combined all of this into a single piece -- it's a 'chawan' called "Nuki" made from wormy dogwood. 2.75" h x 3.5" dia.  I turned it as a cup and sculpted it by hand with a lathe-mounted disc sander.  The outside is finished with Speedball India ink and Fiebings shoe dye, and the inside and foot are finished with Watco Danish.  RenWax on all.  C&C encouraged -- tell me what you think.  

Re: Where is everyone?

Gary:

Terrific piece.� I really like the sculpted look and the colour is a great accent, especially contrasted with the natural interior.� Well done!

Barry W. Larson

Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!

thank you very much, Barry

I'm happy you like it.  The texturing was done somewhat haphazardly without much of a plan, so it came out better than it had any right to.  I had decided on five-fold symmetry in advance and pretty much just went freehand from there.  This is the predecessor to the little box done in similar fashion (but not black) that I posted here back in January.  

Re: Where is everyone?

It looks absolutely stunning, very nice piece!

Am I correct that you had a sanding disk spinning on the lathe and then just pushed the piece by hand against it at predetermined intervals?

Did you ink first and then apply the shoe dye?

Bill

box

I too would like to know how you did the finish.  It is terrific...and the box is not bad either

Thank you, Bill,

Very much appreciated.

Yes, you are correct about the texturing method.  My "standard" disc sander is just a lathe-mounted 6" MDF disc on a faceplate, with velcro to hold a set of standard, commercial-grit discs.  When needed, I use a box rest as the platform.  In this case I just held the cup up to the disc freehand and rotated and shifted it to the desired orientations.  I had marked the rim into five angular "divisions" in advance, but had no other distinct plan than the 5-fold symmetry.  In my mind, I was picturing something like the "chawan" cup by Mikhail Tovstous shown here below.  That was my inspiration. The 60-grit made very short work of the dogwood -- literally only about one second per "cut".  I purposely tried to angle the grit disc edge in at an angle to leave stuttering texture on the deep edges.  "Mark-I" (raw wood) had some nice, unexpected burn marks on the edges (also seen here below) that I originally thought I might keep, because I liked them, and I may do that in the future, but of course those got covered up by the India ink when I decided to continue to black on black, as my ceramic inspiration.  The bug hole was known, but breaking through the rim with my first cut was an accident, so I'll just call it wabi-sabi and move on.  ;-)

And speaking of black, to answer your question, "most" of what you see is really only the Speedball India ink -- certainly on all the textured areas.  It's shellac based and has a nice, natural shine to it.  Truth in advertising here: the reason I had to add the Fiebings shoe dye is because I wanted the smooth areas to be really shiny (like typical black-on-black works of Native American pottery), but in the process of polishing those smooth areas, I broke through the ink to the wood, subtly, but intolerably.  I tried to do another coat of the ink, but it wouldn't stick evenly to the highly-polished surface, so I went to the dye as a backup.  I put on about 5 coats of the dye (because it's very thin) and then polished it (very carefully!) with Abralon 4000 (my standard final satin-shine surface).  That worked satisfactorily.  In the future, I would just put on an extra coat of the India ink before polishing.  :-) 

I'm encouraged by the whole 'faux-kurinuki' process with the disc sander and expect to do some more, but all different because I don't like to repeat myself.  I love boxes too, and I'm planning some kogo and mizusashi and more chaire using this technique.  Eddie Curtis and Akira Satake are my muses, again from the ceramics world.  

Here is my original ceramic cup model, and the raw result off the sander.

Thanks! See my answer to Bill for many details and more pix

Suggestion

Rather than risking a launch of your piece by going "hand-held", consider leaving the piece mounted on the lathe and using a 4" angle grinder with either abrasive disks and/or a Lancelot carver attachment and the indexing stops on your spindle (if you have that). 

The "uncolored" foot bothers me a bit, more so when compared with your inspiration ceramic piece.

Let's see some more?

Thanks for your comments, Mark

FWIW, I found this method very safe, quick, effective, and gratifying in a visceral way.  I worked in the lower left quadrant and had both hands on it firmly -- I felt no undue forces or danger of a launch.  I find those other tools to be a lot scarier and ultimately more dangerous.   JMO.

I appreciate your comment about the foot color. While I definitely see and understand your point, as a wood artist, I like to make sure the wood remains visible. In this case, I chose to keep both the inside (top view) and the foot (bottom view) natural, to balance the black side view, but I'll take your meaningful comment into consideration for the future. 

Re: Thanks for your comments, Mark

Gary, thank you for posting this inspiring thread. I like the ceramic references and applaud your risk-taking sculpting process, a welcome digression from the relentless uniformity of turned surfaces. Very nicely done and inspiring.

Ellis

Ellis, I think I'm actually blushing

Thank you, very kindly, for your warm comments.  They inspire me, in turn (yeah, ok, that's a pun), to continue this as a series.  Cheers!