Hi Charlie! Ever since you first posted this, I've wanted to reply, but
life keeps getting in the way!

Your statement. "yet the resulting piece is static.". really got me to
thinking about all the pieces I have here in the house. While the piece
itself IS static, I see in many of my pieces what I'll have to call "static
movement". As I stand still viewing the piece, it is very static, however,
as I begin to move around the piece, there is movement. In particular, a
few pieces I've created with angled horizontal dividing lines between the
dominant wood being used. For instance, I have a small footed bowl (about 5
1/2" diam x 4" tall) made from Mahogany with a white pine line running thru
the bowl portion at an angle. I did this on the lathe as a sort of "what if
I..." challenge to myself.

I mounted a 6"diam piece of 3/4 Mahogany to the lathe using a 2 1/8"
forstner bit to drill the mounting hole for my chuck. Rather than set the
piece flat against the back of the chuck, I allowed it to remain slightly
"cocked" and then turned the face flat. To this, while still in the chuck,
I glued a 3/4" piece of white pine and turned it down to approx 1/4" on the
face side. Next came another piece of 3/4" Mahogany and it's face was
turned flat as well. I then loosened the chuck and reset the piece flat
against the back of the chuck, turned the face flat and the outside edge
round.

At this point I was considering making the piece a footed hollow form, but
after some further thought about that diagonal, almost pure white line, it
occurred to me that, as a hollow form, the viewer would only see the line
from the edge they were facing. The solution was a bowl. Viewing from a
slightly elevated position, the contrasting line is visible from the outside
as well as the inside and, being "cocked", as the viewer moves around the
piece, or rotates it in their hand, the line actually appears to move.

The base was a segmented effort using the mahogany and pine cutoffs from the
original squares and the piece was finished using a weak aniline dye mixture
of red and black with a lacquer final finish. I'll get some pics up if
anyone is interested.

I love your movement "movement" effort Charlie, just thought I'd offer a
different viewpoint.

Bob Crawford


"charlieb" wrote in message
...
Thought I'd posted this already but apparently not.
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I've been frustrated by the fact that turning is very dynamic and yet
the resulting piece is static.