I work with a guy named Jon and have always suspected he’s one of the few people in corporate America who are genuinely nice, not just someone who pretends to be nice. He’s always upbeat, cheerful, helpful, collaborative, inclusive, well… you get the picture. It wasn’t until he told me the real reason why he came into work with a cleanly shaved head that my suspicions were confirmed. He’s actually a good guy!
When I brought in a new turning to swap out my candy dish, he was quick to compliment my newest efforts, but slipped in a “my wife would really like a bowl like that” compliment, just for good measure. Another Manager overheard his comment and quickly scolded him that the deal was to get a bowl, you HAVE to bring in some wood. Jon said, “ok, I’ll work on that”.
A month or so later, I met him in the bowels of the parking deck so he could give me some chunks of ash that he had rescued from a firewood pile. The whole deal must have looked like a drug deal to the guards who monitor the cameras. When he opened his trunk, he flashed me a look that said he hoped the offering was “good enough” to get a bowl. After a quick look at the wood, I immediately thought no. Nope! Hells no! I’d have to turn something from wood I already had, then lie to him and hope he’d believe what I returned to him was from the same piece of wood. One had cracked, split and checked so much and so deeply, it couldn’t be used for anything but firewood. The other looked like it might have some potential, if the initial chainsaw work could be done with precision.
I was wrong about the second one. No amount of chainsaw dexterity could have compensated for the deep, deep cracks on the inside of the wood. As I was about to chainsaw it into little, tiny chunks and go find an ash blank I had already roughed out, I remembered that hopeful look on his face and the faint light shining on his still shaven head. I shut off the saw and said quietly “ok, I can so something with this”.
The outside shape of the bowl was turned, but I stopped when I thought I was starting to risk the integrity of the wood failing. The cracks were filled with clear epoxy casting resin, dyed red, just to add some color to an otherwise bland wood. To pour a liquid onto a round surface isn’t possible, so I had to build a series of “construction dams” out of clay to keep the resin from running out either side of the crack. Each crack that was filled took a minimum of 24 hours to create the dam, pour the resin, then wait for it to cure. Some cracks took multiple pours to complete. Since only one crack could be filled at a time (the crack had to be horizontal to the surface) it took weeks just to get the cracks filled.
Once I was sure the resin was going to hold everything together, I continued turning. After the final turn was done, I was left with a plain looking bowl that had these see through red streaks through it. That was good, but ol’ baldy needed better. After some airbrushing with colored dye I added some black spray paint, but it looked terrible. When I went to remove the black paint, something happened and it wiped off some of the paint, but “melted” some as well. Didn’t expect that kind of “happy accident”. Overall, I’m definitely satisfied with the addition of the colors. Below is the final project. I’m very happy with the look of the bowl, but happier with the smile Jon gave when it was given to him. Hope his wife likes it!
