This weekend, while cleaning up some stuff in the garage, I once again came across a large box that has very old, very dry, cottonwood bark.  This stuff has been sitting in the garage for at least 10 years, from back when I was carving the bark into little gnome homes.  I’ve never wanted to throw the stuff away, but now, I don’t really want it taking up space, either.  I decided to see what would happen if I mixed pieces of the bark (which is very soft) with epoxy (which is very hard), then try to make some kind of turning out of it.  I cut a chuck of the bark into little jagged pieces, mixed some resin, added a cobalt blue dye, and let it cure in the pressure pot.

Turning the blank proved to be a challenge.  I secured it to the lathe with a woodworm screw, but the screw mostly went into the bark, so the hold was pretty suspect.  Then, as the tool alternated between laboring through the hard epoxy, only to hit a soft piece of bark, it became nearly impossible to keep the chisel from bouncing back and forth, causing more bark than epoxy to be removed.  I ended up using the heaviest scraper I own, then moved VERY slowly, taking only miniscule cuts with each pass.

Here’s what I ended up with.  when looking at it through normal interior lighting, the blue looks almost black.

BUT…  When natural light hits it, the deep, deep blue color comes out and really enhances the look of the bowl.