First attempt at piercing

Turned a 9" deep platter with a 2" rim, some insect activity was noticeable, but managed to get the rim under .12" and then laid out a pattern for the leaves and started to pierce a lacy pattern. After the piercing I airbrushed aneline wood dye on to the rim and the interior of the platter and left the back natural. finished it all off with "Rattle Can" lacquer and this is the result. Comments and or critiques more than welcome.IMG_7753-001.JPGIMG_7749-001.JPG top and bottom view.
 
I like it, very nicely done.

The coloring on the top is really fantastic, specifically the shading between the gold and green is really nice. I think the red/umber bowl contrasts nicely with the rim as well.

I like the supporting continuous piece around the rim, I think its about the right size and pulls the piece together. I think it might have looked slighly nicer if that was more closely mirrored with a corresponding solid ring around the inside of the rim alongside the bowl (I see there is a solid ring there but it _looks_ thinner than the other ring).

Not much to say on the underside other than that your transition between the bowl and the rim is impressively crisp :thumb:
 
Very nice. You could do that with a scroll saw if you could get the top arm clamp close enough to the bowl portion without it hitting the bowl. I think this was done with a tool like a dremel.
 
Leo, piercing is done with a small turbine works on compressor and turns at about 450,000rpm. It is like a dentist's drill, the little drills or burrs are what has done the holes that you see. The idea of piercing from what I have figured out is that unless the wood is less than an eighth of an inch thick it is hard work for the drill to pierce the wood, so this rim except for the edge is .12" thick a dremmiel may do the bigger portions but certainly not the smaller areas. The other advantage of the speed of the turbine is that it is able to not be bothered to much by the grain patterns in the wood,
 
Well, no I could not because I do not own a scroll saw. The other advantage of the turbine is that I can push the burr through the wood and then cut the pattern at the same time. The turbine turning at(as I have mentioned) 450,000rpm becomes a faster and less complicated way of doing the piercing.
 
Great piece, Dirk. :clap: The turning is top-notch and the piercing is very well done. It's hard to get a random hole pattern to look random, and you nailed it. :thumb: I like the coloring, too. My only suggestion for improvement would be to carefully wet-sand the bowl portion (and perhaps the pierced rim) with 600 grit wet or dry automotive paper, then buff with Tripoli and white diamond to remove the orange peel surface from the spray lacquer. I've done this on a lot of dyed pieces, and ended up with a "Grand Piano" finish. You have to be careful to not sand through the lacquer and expose the dyed wood, though. (I generally build up 15+ light coats before starting the wet sanding.)
 
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