Redgum burl cap pot
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A new friend presented this challenge to me by hauling this 'burl cap' with them all the way from Victoria to see what I could do with it. This actually created two challenges - firstly, Margie only had a couple of days in Emerald so time was limited, and second, she also wanted to keep the outside as natural as possible whereas I felt it needed more 'human intervention'. Nature had already done some of the work with the hollowing so this reduced my options for shaping the inside and we compromised on the outside by going for a turned foot.
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First step was to sand a flat on what was to become the bottom to create a base and rough the hollow out a bit closer to round using a die grinder. This allowed the 'pot' to be glued temporarily to a spigot from a previous project (always handy to keep them) using a tailstock centre 'cone' to position the pot and apply pressure while the glue set. |
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The top was flattened and the pot was then hollowed revealing a large resin void in the base. The void was subsequently filled with chunks of the dry resin surrounded by Australian ebony dust flooded with thin super-glue (CA). |
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An area on the side of the pot that was damaged by machinery at some stage was cleaned up using a carbide burr in a die-grinder. The surface left by the carbide burr was very similar to the natural surface so I just gave it a good go over with a wire brush and left the area at that. |
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For visual and physical balance, the foot of the pot needed to be offset from the pot centre so,
after applying a coat of Danish oil, the pot was reversed on to a 200mm faceplate and the tailstock used for support. Once the best point for
centre of the foot was
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With the foot shaped, the stub from the tailstock support was cut off and sanded smooth. the whole piece was then given a liberal coating of Danish oil and handed over to the happy traveller (well she at least said she liked it!).
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