Hollow Maple Vessel

I love curly maple. It catches the light as you move it in a nice way. Maple in itself is easy to turn and is very stable so its great to work with. Curly maple looks great and complements almost anything. I only wish I could get more of it. As it turns out. I came across a 2" think curly maple block that had a fare amount of curl so I took it home to work with. For some reason. I decided I'd test my skills and see what I could do with this nice piece of maple. I've done lots of hollow vessels before. I think this might have been the wides and narrowest one up until this point.

As luck would have it and as often is the case I was working on more than one thing at once. With this vessel, I happened to get another nice block of maple and with timing, I hollowed them both out at the same time. Not to be repetitive, I didn't want to turn the same shape. So I left a nice crisp shoulder on one and a more rounded shoulder on the other. Both are hollowed out to about a 1/8th or 3/16th inch or less in the wall thickness. As a result they are light but not so thin that they are unstable.

Here you can see both after hallowing. Something else that makes a difference to the trained eye is how these where both dried. The vessel with a square crisp shoulder was dried naturally while the other was dried in a kiln. For these they both turned well but they have a difference in appearance that comes from the different ways of drying. Its interesting to compare them side by side.


I wanted to have hollow vessels. The best way to make something a true vessel and not just a vase is to put a lid on it. for both of these vessels, I used some figured walnut I found and saved from a slash pile. The contrast was so nice I turned feet out of walnut as well. These feet helped both of these have a standing or floating look. I'll be honest. I'm happy. Whats a lid without a handle? I needed some finial practice so I gave them each a finial as well. For the finial I used some macasser ebony. Its stable and easy to turn. It can be a little difficult when it gets thinner so extra care must be taken. Its just a matter of taking things slow and carefully.

The end results are some nice vessels and some great wood turing. I hope you enjoy.










Thanks for reading. 








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