I was cleaning some stuff up in the garage and came across a cedar bowl that I had started to turn at least 5 years ago when I was still very, very new and bad at turning.  I know it was that long ago, because the shape is absolutely horrendous and I remember getting a nasty catch while the wood was spinning.  The sudden catch is like sticking a broom handle in the spokes of a bike:  something’s gonna break and something’s gonna go flying.  In this case, the tenon (the part of the wood that the lathe holds on to) is what broke.  The actual bowl was the part that went flying, right over my left shoulder, past my ear, and landed somewhere near the back of the garage.  Now, as I looked at the half-turned piece of wood, I decided to use it as a “test piece” for an idea that had been knocking around my brain.  I submerged the wood in ebonizing fluid (steel wool, dissolved in vinegar), put it in the vacuum chamber, and left it sit under pressure for a couple of days.  When it came out, it looked like a lump of charcoal!  As I turned it, though, the rich reddish color of the cedar came out, but all of the white sapwood had retained the dark black color.

Here’s the final product.  the shape is still a terrible cross between an ashtray and an upside down hat from the 50’s, but I really like what the ebonizing fluid did to the wood.