The woodturning club I’m in has a challenge every other month to make something specific.  Usually, it’s something to “force” the members to make something they wouldn’t normally do.  Kinda shake people out of their comfort zone.  The current challenge is to make something where you have to structurally change the wood.  The piece below was supposed to be my entry, but unfortunately, now it’s firewood.  I took a piece of wood my daughter found that was incredibly dry.  Might have been some kind of ornamental pear, but I suspect it had been sitting in someone’s firewood pile for years.  I made a bowl, cut the top off, then segmented a ring of cottonwood bark and put the top of the bowl back on.  Then, I carved out the bark to where all that was left was some kind of tree like structure.  The goal was to make it look like there were limbs holding up the rim.

This one’s most likely going in the weeny roast because to two specific reasons.  First, the texture I put on the bark made it look more like coral than wood.  I figured once the final turning part was completed, I could always go back and take the texture off the cottonwood, then maybe carve in wood grain to make it look like timber.  That was the plan, anyway…  Second, cottonwood bark actually has a grain to it, like a whole bunch of layers of paper, all stacked up on each other.  Because that that, it can get pretty “chippy” and splits between the layers of bark are pretty common as it is carved.  For this bowl, as I was actually doing the final turning it to get the tenon off the bottom of the bowl, disaster struck.  All of the bark “failed” at once, and the bowl split in about 10 pieces.  Once the swearing tirade ended, one of my daughters helped me scour the shop to find the missing pieces of bark that had gone flying.  We found all of the bits, so I figured I’d glue it back together and see what there was to see.  From a distance, it looks ok.  When you get up close enough to see the horrible texture and the numerous glue lines from the CA glue reconstruction, it’ll cause a little shudder to escape.

I still like the concept, so maybe before the next meeting, maybe I’ll try again.