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.

Box elder will do that to you a lot... seems to alternate between normal, bugly
and spectacular...
I was about 1/3 of the way into hollowing a box elder bowl a few months ago and
hit a "vein" of bright red... not wanting to take the chance of turning it into
shavings and losing the color, I reshaped the outside to make a smaller,
shallower bowl...

I stop often to clear shavings, check tightness of tool rest, etc... but mostly
to look at the wood...
I love grains, color, defects, figure, whatever... to me, that's part of what
makes wood beautiful and every turning unique..




mac

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