Thread: A tricky little sucker

This vase was turned from a piece of crotch wood that had internal bark right the way down the branch junction to the heart of the two initial twigs. Have found a few examples like this and in the past have thrown them out. They don't have any feather wood to speak of. This is an attempt to do something with one of these crotch pieces.
Vase is turned from blackwood, stands 230 mm tall and the rim is 140 mm wide, finished with Rustins DO and buffed with EEE.

open vase 1.jpgopen vase 2.jpgopen vase 3.jpgopen vase 4.jpg


I thought about this for a few days working out how to turn it without it flying apart. There was more wood than this holding it together when I started. Squared up the ends between centres. Screwed a face plate onto the mouth end and drilled a 50 mm hole in the base and glued in a plug then turned a tenon on the base. Glued a tenon onto the mouth end and trued it up so as to run it in a steady rest. Turned the outside to shape and then hollowed through the tenon on the mouth. Took quite a bit of hand finishing.

Comments and criticism welcome

Tony