| Project by Eric M. Saperstein | posted 05-10-2012 05:40 PM | 2227 views | 0 times favorited | 6 comments |  |
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“Pheasant Wood” – Hawaiian Pheasant Wood or Golden Shower Tree (Kolohala) This extremely rare ornamental tree is normally found in yards and landscapes. Its distinctive yellow flowers and foot long pods makes it an interestingly beautiful tree. The wood’s grain, when cut, looks like the golden brown tail feathers of a pheasant … and hence the name pheasant wood.
According to the various descriptions I found it makes very distinctive bowls – I bought a bowl blank but figured it would also make sense to pickup some random size stopper and pen blanks. Keeping in mind I do not yet have a bowl coring rig – this stuff is expensive and my desire to turn a mass quantity of it in the center of a bowl to dust is very LOW.
I’m not great with bowl turning just yet, still in the initial stages of learning that trade – and I’m gonna be sticking with cheap wood for now and just stockpiling the exotics.
SO – logically I NEEDED to see what this stuff would look like, so I turned a simple wine stopper … pretty cool. hard to see the distinctive grain patterns but it is there. I think that a plank or larger surface would allow better display of the pheasant patterns (obviously) ...
-- Eric M. Saperstein, Master Craftsman www.artisansofthevalley.com
6 comments so far
hunter71
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#1 posted 05-10-2012 07:09 PM
Never heard of it, looks neat though. Can’t wait to see the bowl.
-- A childs smile is payment enough.
grizzman
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#2 posted 05-10-2012 11:55 PM
well im going to have to look this up to see a bigger piece of it, i imagine its got to be some beautiful wood, thanks for the heads up, i always like to learn about new woods…
-- GRIZZMAN ...[''''']
grizzman
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#3 posted 05-10-2012 11:59 PM
http://www.koolauukulele.com/stock/Kolohala1.jpg here is a larger piece of it to see, its really top of the line beautiful…thats for sure…
-- GRIZZMAN ...[''''']
Eric M. Saperstein
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#4 posted 05-11-2012 12:13 AM
http://www.hawaiiwoodturning.com/pheasant-wood.html – this is obviously NOT my work, but a great example of how the wood can look in a larger form. I found it pretty fascinating, the block I have I “think” is 8”x8”x3” ... I would hope if I get a coring rig I can get 3 bowls out of it. It’ll be a while before I drop another $1,500 into the lathe to setup the proper equipment to do this.
Nice guitar work!
-- Eric M. Saperstein, Master Craftsman www.artisansofthevalley.com
Martyroc
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#5 posted 05-11-2012 04:37 AM
Very nice.
-- Martin ....always count the number of fingers you have before, and after using the saw.
Eric M. Saperstein
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766 posts in 4215 days
#6 posted 05-30-2012 11:31 PM
I’ve had this sitting on my desk at the shop (which ODDLY is also my big delta table shaper) ... since I made it … for some reason as simple as this piece is it’s kinda fascinating. The grain is not drastic, but it’s interesting to study close up in person. The photos really don’t show it off … waiting for the opportunity to tear into the big block of it I have!
-- Eric M. Saperstein, Master Craftsman www.artisansofthevalley.com
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