workinforwood
Member
An addition to my wifes Christmas pile because she keeps complaining that her pen cup is too small. Well if she'd stop stealing my pens, I think it would have been fine! I picked up this piece of wood at the carving show a few weeks ago. Manzanita root I believe. I am terrible at spinning big bowl like things. This darn thing wobbled so bad I had to clamp the lathe to the table and turn at while the table walked around the shop, as I cursed. Then a few big chunks blew off an I had to glue it back together a few times. Had to sharpen my gouge every 5 seconds, so I switched to Ken's woodchuck. That sure helped increase my turning to 15 seconds then had to turn the carbide and went through 3 carbide bits, all four sides before giving up and switching to a belt sander and mask. This root seems to have sand in it like cement. You see a brown spot near the lower left in one of the pics..I swear that's super duper compact sand. I had to do multiple fills of inlace..it goes on and one, sand, glue, curse. Dusted up the whole shop and took me about 10 horific hours to make. Cup turned out ok, it's about 7" wide on the outside. I'll never do it again. If she doesn't like it, I'll be punting it into her you know what! :laugh:
