Spalted Birch Vases

These are the third and fourth vases in my series of six that I made to get the hang of hollowing with my new tool. The wood used for these two vases came from a neighbor’s tree that was cut down, perhaps because it was sick (which would explain the spalting.) (This is the same stock of wood that was used to make the Spalted Birch Goblet).

I was trying to push the tool on these two pieces, in terms of how deep and narrow I could make a vase. Also, in keeping with the concept of using the shape of a vase to exploit the particular features of the wood, I made these vases curvy so that the spalting fades in and out. Otherwise the spalting may have ended up looking like just a black streak from top to bottom.

-- Brian Havens, Woodworker http://brianhavens.com