Lidded Cup

After being away from my lathe for 2 1/2 years, this piece was most frustrating and took twice as long to complete as it should have. The first disaster was when it came unglued from its glueblock and flew across the room after the outside had been finish sanded and I was about a third of the way through hollowing it. I had to use some trickery to get it remounted and recentered before I could reshape the outside to remove the dents and resand.

The second mini-disaster was when I had completely finished the piece (except the lid), had already applied the finish and had reversed chucked it to finish the bottom. I won’t go into the gory details because it was a stupid mistake, but suffice to say I had a catch with my little skew while putting a decorative ring on the bottom which completely ruined the bottom and put a small mark on the bottom 1/16th” of the side. Fortunately I had left a bit of meat in the base and was able to turn off the bottom and redo it.

The other lesson I learned on this piece was to not use too much CA glue to strengthen the edges of the voids. Once it cures it is far harder than the wood and its a SOB trying to shape the work with a gouge when you keep running into this rock hard mass right in the middle of your curve. It also dulled every gouge I could throw at it. Won’t do that again…

As frustrating as this piece was, I am extremely pleased with the end result. The cup is maple burl with a void near the base. It was turned with a wall thickness just a hair over 1/8” and finished on the lathe with shellac and friction wax. The lid is end grain padauk and has a bit of chatterwork on the inside. Because it is endgrain, the lid and handle are a single piece. I applied a coat of tung oil to the lid before the shellac and friction wax.

It is about 2.5” diameter and about 4” high.

-- Anything worth doing is worth overdoing