I need some opinions, please if you're reading this - woodturner or not - leave a comment. I need to figure out what to do with the voids on this burl. Many of the voids go at least an inch deep, some of them as much as 2 or 3 inches and up to 1/2" wide. With a finished thickness of under 1/2" many of them will go all the way through the finished piece, risking it coming apart on the lathe.
There's also this mysterious hole in one side of the burl. It doesn't go all the way through to the bark and it doesn't appear in the bowl I cored off the bottom of this blank.
The 2 options are: 1) leave them alone and leave the voids unfilled and natural or 2) fill them with something; coffee grounds, Turquoise, Chrysocolla, Malachite, or something similar.
This is an earlier set from the same tree to give you a better idea of the color of the wood and how it looks with coffee grounds used as a filler.
Now it's time to let me know what you think. Fill or no fill. If fill then with what?
This one is a tough call for me, and even tougher just looking at pictures. I am a big fan of leaving voids, but that is a LOT of void space, and especially with the risk of the piece flying apart, I would probably lean towards filling them. If you go with coffee grounds, better start drinking a lot of it. I use a couple of drops of black gesso in epoxy a lot. Works well for me. I also like turquoise. I have never worked with Chrysallis.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the shape of the voids, I think a red/orange/yellow inlay would look good. Kinda of a fire/flame look. A blue flame would look good too.
ReplyDeleteCoffee grinds look nice, but some color would sure make it pop.
What about leaving the voids and making a thicker bowl? That might mess up what could be a nice set of bowls though...
ReplyDeleteI vote for filling the voids in this instance. Have you ever tried key filings in clear epoxy? It can give an interesting sparkle. (They look at you funny when you ask for them at Home Depot, but they will gladly give you a large bag.) Make the mixture quite stiff and pack it into the voids.
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