This is my latest piece, which is one of my burl and resin series pieces. This piece is about 8 inches high by about 6 1/2" in diameter. It is an olive root burl with a green and a hint of gold pigmented resin, and quite possibly the most difficult/frustrating piece I have every made. It is not that it is was particularly challenging far as design or technique, but soon after I started hollowing I found several rocks from about 1/2" in diameter to over 1 1/2" in diameter that the wood of the burl had grown around. I was wishing these rocks were limestone or something soft but my luck they were quartz. I ruined 4 hunter cutters and finally had to use long shank carbide burrs to slowly grind the rocks out. I have no idea how many hours but I can say it was not an easy task. A few times I almost gave up on the piece. It was lucky that it even made it off of the lathe. I hated to give up as the casting itself was probably the most flaw free casting that I have ever done. I had change a few things on this casting to see if I could improve on the pieces I was making. Those changes made a positive impact on this piece. It has incredible depth and a lot of visual movement in the resin parts of the piece and nice piece of wood. It is about 3/16" thick until the bottom which is 3/8" because there is a rock in the bottom that I could not cut all the way out. It is visible for the inside and form the bottom of the piece. I purposely made the opening a little larger as it invites people to take a look inside to see the light shining through the translucent resin.
I call this Piece "Mar Verde" as it reminds me of a green sea.
Cheers or jeers are welcome.
Thanks for looking
Alan
