Does anyone in the NG believe in predestination as it relates to wood?
Have
you ever considered that some bowl blanks may be predestined to be
firewood
while others may be headed for galleries?

I had a wonderful maple/pau ferro vase that I was working on (man, does
Pau Ferro look good!), but no matter how much effort I put into it, one
thing after another kept going wrong. And I mean *wrong*. Finally, I just
threw it all away, feeling like a complete failure.

On the other hand, I bought a large block of blackheart sassafras to make
a wedding gift for a close friend. When I bought it, I had the bowl I
wanted to make exactly planned out. I got it home, and every time I was
about to mount it, I just couldn't do it - I had to take another look at it.
Finally, I decided to just flip it over and mount it the other way. Once I
had, I looked closely at the spalting that makes blackheart sassafrass so
beautiful, and realized that if I shaped the bowl within a very close
tolerance, I could get the edges of the bowl to come in and out of the
spalting several times on both sidesfor a very striking effect.. The bowl
ended up being the most beautiful piece that I've ever turned.

steve