Hollow Forms #9 and #10

Vaughn McMillan

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Here is the latest pair of HFs I've finished up.

This one is a piece of punky spalted hackberry. It's about 5" wide x 4 3/4" tall. I had a lot of tearout to contend with, but in the end it survived the ride. The hardness varied quite a bit, so it got a little lopsided during sanding, but the wall thickness is a pretty consistent 1/8" or so. The finish is a coat of Antique Oil, then several layers of dewaxed shellac to fill up the pores, re-sanded smooth, then a few coats of wipe-on poly and buffed. It's glossier than it looks in the pics...I shot with very indirect light to avoid any glare. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it, particularly the rim...it's a new approach for me.

HF9aT 800.jpg HF9cT 800.jpg HF9bT 800.jpg HF9dT 800.jpg

Next up is another piece of red eucalyptus salvaged from my office. I made this one to give to a co-worker to commemorate his 20th anniversary with our company. (He's also one of the nicest people I know, and a brilliant software engineer.) I've been with the company for 16 years myself, so we're both a couple of old dinosaurs who've shared a lot over the years. It's about 5 1/2" wide x 4" tall, and if you count them just right, there are 20 growth rings...one for each year he's been with the company. ;) The finish is Antique Oil and buffed.

HF10aT 800.jpg HF10cT 800.jpg HF10bT 800.jpg HF10dT 800.jpg

Comments and critiques are welcome. I'm still working on getting the blue out of the background in the pics...gotta play with the white balance a bit more.
 
Okay, Vaughn - why do you outshine me? I did my very first hollow-form yesterday and managed to turn it into a light fixture - all I need to do now is install the wiring. I managed to get it much thinner in one area and have a very uniform 1/2 opening halfway down and exactly halfway around. UGH.

And then, here you go showing off with two perfect pieces. Guess I need more practice.
 
Dag-nabbit Vaughn, my lovely wife was reading over my shoulder and she said "I thought you were going to make some Hollow Forms....?"

Man, those look really nice, looks like you are getting the hang of it for sure! :clap:

I've not had the time to fool with my HF rig, I wish I did, but I just have too darn much on the go............ (future post will explain that)

Nice job................. Hey, when you run out of that red eucalyptus, are you going to spike some more trees around there or what.............:rolleyes:

(Kidding of course!!)
 
Vaughn, I really like the rim on your hackberry. We have a ton of it around here and as you are discovering it spalts readily and rots fast. What are you doing up posting pics at 3:35 CDT?? Your co worker should be very pleased with his gift.
 
Vaughan very nice work I especially like the rim on the bowl, I will have to put HF tools on my wish list for fathers day.Is the learning curve hard?Thanks for the pictures good luck on your next ones.
Ken:thumb: :thumb:
 
Thanks for all the kind words, all. To answer a few questions:

Sandy, sorry to hear about your light fixture. In the next day or so I'll post pics of the figured walnut funnel I made a while back, and the "repair" I did to the bowl it came from. ;)

...What are you doing up posting pics at 3:35 CDT??
That was still early...only 1:35 my time, and still about 3 hours before I hit the hay last night. (I work and play strange hours compared to most of the working world.)

...I will have to put HF tools on my wish list for fathers day.Is the learning curve hard?...
Ken, I've been pleasantly surprised how easy the learning curve has been. You can pay more attention to form and less to survival. :)

Thanks again for the compliments - :wave:
 
I wanted to be a turner. Then I finally got my shop and old better lathe and turned some. Then I go all the other machines and I find I like making furniture better. But man do you make me jealous! Those are SWEET!

I'm still working on getting the blue out of the background in the pics...gotta play with the white balance a bit more.

Try adding some light on the background. I am assuming it is white? The trick is to overexpose the background compared the subject. I strongly suspect your blue is just from underexposed background. But your subject is just right. So the solution is another/more light on the background
 
...Try adding some light on the background. I am assuming it is white? The trick is to overexpose the background compared the subject. I strongly suspect your blue is just from underexposed background. But your subject is just right. So the solution is another/more light on the background
Thanks for the suggestion. It's a white to gray gradient background, so it should be somewhere between the two. I shot these pics at f16 as I recall, and let the camera determine the speed (which I think was around 3 seconds...I didn't look). I'm doing some tweaking in Photoshop to lighten things up after the fact, but I think I need to tweak the camera a bit more instead. With my current photo cube setup, it's difficult to add light to the background without having it hit the subject, too. I was shooting these pics with no direct light on the photo cube - it was all bounced off the walls or ceiling in an attempt to avoid glare. If time permits, I'll play around with it a bit more tonight. ;)
 
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