On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 11:45:39 -0500, "Kevin"
wrote:

So there I was the other night turning a bowl. As it was spinning away, I
noticed that the wood beneath the gouge seemed to change. I stopped the
lathe and found the exposed grain was truly beautiful. I'd already finished
the outside and was working on the inside when the grain was revelaed. The
problem? Well I had only removed about 1/2 in depth of the bowl that was
destined to be at least 2 inches deep. I went ahead and finished and the
beautiful grain was gone.
Has this ever happened to any here? How should/could I have handled this
situation? I consider it a fluke that I actually stopped and looked. I
usually get so caught up in the fever of making wood fly that I don't notice
the wood beneath. Also the wood is spinning fairly quickly so noticing
grain patterns is a bit problematic.

Sadly, yes. One of the first things I turned on my lathe was a lamp
made of laminated bird's eye maple. The lamp turned out awfully nice,
but those bird's eyes that I liked so much were nowhere to be seen.
(Duh)

I do stop the lathe fairly frequently to take a look at the grain, but
if you're not going for some specific effect, it's probably not all
that necessary as long as the form is pleasing. OTHO, if you don't
want to stop the lathe, but want to see the grain (and you're not an
epileptic) you could put a strobe light overhead *G*