This piece came about following some sound advise that I was given a few days ago on this forum, and through private message. This was a rock hard piece of ash branchwood with a crusty burr on it....a bit like the ultimate knobbly knee! It was only about 6" long and 4" diamneter, so I really couldn't afford to lose much, but one end of the piece was badly cracked, with several cracks radiating from the pith, so I cut a tenon, mounted it in a compression chuck and this was the result.
The shape was dictated, to a great extent, by the burr itself. I couldn't have kept it any bigger, and if I'd gone smaller, I would have lost some of the features. In the end, I settled for keeping it as big as I could and binding all the cracked area with copper wire, lightly painted with a patination fluid just to knock back the brightness of the copper. I chose to blacken the inside so as to accentuate the shape of the voids.
C&C always welcome.
Les
