I’ve been cleaning up the shop and keep finding projects that I had started at some point, then stopped for some unknown reason.  Sadly, the reason is most likely that something shiny caught my eye and I moved on to something else.  I’m sure there was a solemn intent of coming back later, but later never seems to appear on a calendar.  I decided to finish these three, completely forgetting what my initial intent was…

This is a large bowl, about 13″ across, made from some of the nastiest red oak that I’ve ever tried to turn.  There were worm holes that had to be turned around, it split while it was drying, and it smells really, really bad while turning it.  Like, really bad.  Like stagnant, slimy, leach filled swamp water kind of bad.  In the end, I filled all the cracks with dark blue tinted epoxy, did the best I could with the worm holes, and managed to make a decent sized bowl.  Being made from oak, this thing is really, really heavy!  The up side is it should burn well…

This one is about 8″ across and is made from a piece of walnut that I honestly can’t remember starting.  There must have been something funky with the initial blank that forced me to make the funnel-like shape at the bottom, because I can’t see myself making that shape if there was any other choice.  There was a channel cut near the rim, so the initial thought must have been to add some kind of embellishment there, but I have absolutely no recollection of what the initial plan was.  I decided to take a thin piece of maple, dye it “tangerine orange” and inlay into the groove.  Not sure I like the effect, but at least the piece is completed.

This one is about 10″ across and is one of the last (if not THE last) piece of white oak that I have.  Again, I can’t remember what I was initially thinking this would be, but it’s thicker than I normally turn, but I liked the shape and I had already sanded it down to at least 320.  Obviously, I had something in mind.  What I ended up doing was airbrush layers of aniline dye on the outside and adding multiple layers of gloss lacquer.  Yes, I’ve done this before, but last time it was ash, this time it’s white oak.  Kinda like the look of this one!