There’s a guy named Harvey Meyer who makes the most amazing turnings that end up looking like native American baskets.  His work is worth thousands, is in a whole slew of galleries, and is at the absolute highest level of craftsmanship.  Google his work and you’ll be amazed.  He’s also extremely open to showing everyone exactly how he does what he does.  There is a two part YouTube video of him giving a step by step demonstration that was recorded by the woodturning club that was lucky enough to have him.  He made it look simple!  Easy.  Embarrassingly remedial in terms of the skills needed, leaving me to think “is that all it takes?”.  I decided to try to make one.

I had to make an indexing system for my lathe, which took several hours of YouTube watching to figure out.  then, I had to buy a special beading tool and a special woodburning tip and since the woodburner I have isn’t compatible with the tip I needed, I ended up also having to buy a new woodburning pen to accept the tip, but it works with my current machine.  $75 worth of supplies later and the multi-color sets of India ink my kids gave me for Christmas, I was ready to go.  He only uses holly (which doesn’t grow around here) or some kind of pear that he finds in slabs big enough to make 12″ plus sized platters and hollow forms.  The closest I could find was an ornamental pear tree, that would yield a bowl about 7″ wide.  Close enough, right?

Then the learning started.  I learned that using the beading tool to make a series of perfectly sized and spaced beads is NOT as easy and quick as he makes it look.  I learned that ornamental pear is NOT close enough, since it won’t take the small beads well, especially if there is any non-linear grain in the wood.  I learned that using the edge of sandpaper to burn lines in a bowl is not nearly as easy as he made it look, without sanding half of your bead away in the process.  I learned that when he said, “us this particular brand of india ink marker to color in the beads” there was a reason.  I used a very small paint brush.  His looks like art, mine looks like a third grader’s art project in comparison.

All things considered, the finished project actually turned out pretty good!  When I make the next one, there is a whole list of things that I would do differently.  Different colors, different wood, MUCH faster speed when making the beads, different pattern, different mechanism for getting the color on the beads, and some subtle changes to my indexing system.  Overall, I’m going to call this bowl a success, even with the flaws.