Some older work

I was sitting in my sunroom looking at some of my older work that hadn’t found it’s way into my fireplace. The first piece is osage orange, which is known for it’s brilliant yellow color. Well, guess what? It doesn’t last :-) This piece is a great mellow brown from 4-5 years of “aging”. As woodturners, we plan what the wood will look like when we get it off the lathe, but rarely do we take into consideration the life of the piece. As much as I liked it in bumblebee yellow, I think I like it even moreso now.

The second piece is a piece of cherry. Aside from being a very difficult piece to undercut, it happens to be one of those pieces that “just came out right”. It’s also a few years old, and at the time, I was just an “OK’ woodturner (although I didn’t know it). I probably had a 50/50 chance of getting a piece like this off the lathe without the explosions we all fear. Now, I’m probably up to 90% or better. It was in my “really thin” phase, so it’s hollowed to about 3/16” thick throughout. I’ve had similar “thin” pieces that have not survived the effects of gravity and sudden impact.

It was also my first foray into surface textures, and going back to living with the aging process, we see another aspect for turners to consider. All of the texture makes it much harder to care for! Yes, if you look closely, it needs to be dusted pretty badly. However, aged cherry is probably the single “sexiest” wood in North America in my opinion.

So, as you start down the path of woodturning, consider two things. How will the wood change over time and what effect will it have on the piece that I made? How will long term care of the piece affect it’s longevity?

-- Steven