Project Information
Every summer, the local woodworking club that I belong to, has a "picnic challenge". This year, each participant was to make something out of three pieces of wood provided by the club president. Each set of wood was as close to identical as possible. The three pieces of wood were: a wedge of Curly Maple, about 8" x 10" on the outside of the wedge; a 4" x 4", 3/4" thick piece of Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry); and a piece of Wenge' about the size of a pen blank. The rules were that we had to use at least some of each wood, and that no other woods could be used.
My original plan was to make the bowl section out of the Maple, leaving some of the natural ripple, caused by the curly figure, on the outside of the log on the rim; use the Jatoba for the rim, and the Wenge' for the finial. However, as I hollowed out the bowl, it was eventually clear that the natural rim idea was not going to pan out. To make thing worse, the opening at the rim was now too large for the piece of Jatoba that I wanted to use as rim
To solve the lid problem, I sliced up the Wenge' to make segments, to form a segmented ring to make the rim smaller. At this point, I could use the Jatoba again to make the rim, but this left me with no Wenge' for the finial. I did have some leftover Maple, but I thought that a Maple finial would not look nice.
I checked the rules, and found that coloring the wood was legal, so I decided to use the Maple for the finial and ebonize it. For an added touch, I decided to make a multi-axis final, which ended up kind of resembling the stem on an apple.
So, at this point, just when I am starting to feel that I am in the clear, just needing to get a couple of coats of lacquer on this piece, I completely botch the lacquer on the inside of the bowl. After trying to re-sand the inside, it was clear that I was not going to be able to easily remove my botchery entirely. Once again, ebonizing came to my rescue. I could not fix it, so I hid it.
Picnic Challenge? A challenge it was, but a picnic it was not.
My original plan was to make the bowl section out of the Maple, leaving some of the natural ripple, caused by the curly figure, on the outside of the log on the rim; use the Jatoba for the rim, and the Wenge' for the finial. However, as I hollowed out the bowl, it was eventually clear that the natural rim idea was not going to pan out. To make thing worse, the opening at the rim was now too large for the piece of Jatoba that I wanted to use as rim
To solve the lid problem, I sliced up the Wenge' to make segments, to form a segmented ring to make the rim smaller. At this point, I could use the Jatoba again to make the rim, but this left me with no Wenge' for the finial. I did have some leftover Maple, but I thought that a Maple finial would not look nice.
I checked the rules, and found that coloring the wood was legal, so I decided to use the Maple for the finial and ebonize it. For an added touch, I decided to make a multi-axis final, which ended up kind of resembling the stem on an apple.
So, at this point, just when I am starting to feel that I am in the clear, just needing to get a couple of coats of lacquer on this piece, I completely botch the lacquer on the inside of the bowl. After trying to re-sand the inside, it was clear that I was not going to be able to easily remove my botchery entirely. Once again, ebonizing came to my rescue. I could not fix it, so I hid it.
Picnic Challenge? A challenge it was, but a picnic it was not.
