A little advise is needed

[Scott Hackler]

So during this "holiday" away from the lathe, my thoughts are with some upcoming projects and my sketch pad drawings. I also must focus on using the available wood in the shop. Which brings me to the question. My turning buddy Jim Adkins gifted me a 12" cube of curly Redwood while at SWAT. So I am thinking about what to do with it. My first thought was large HF but don't know what a 10-11" diameter HF will look like in the flesh. What do you think? Too big or go for it?

Oh and yes I am having serious withdrawls! But I do get to demo/teach at my club's upcoming workshop...if I remember how!

[Kelvin Burton]

Probably not what you want to hear but for me that would equal two very nice bowls!

[Scott Hackler]

lol....Kelvin, you stay away from my redwood cube!

[Alan Trout]

I would make it a hollow form. I just like them much better then bowls. But that is just me.

Alan

[Marty Eargle]

I would guess there would be quite a bit of wood waste if you made the whole thing one piece. I would probably try to determine the desired form and cut a few pen/finial/whatever blanks off of it. Also, no shame in making two short, wide hollow forms instead of the one big one. Could even be displayed as "twin" set when you finish them up.

[Dave Stricker]

Consider a Southwest "pottery" hollowform. They are about as wide as they are tall and the redwood might look a little like pottery.

Dave

[Hayes Rutherford]

How about 4-6x6x12 pieces for tall hollow forms or vase forms?

[Curt Fuller]

Scott, it kind of depends on what audience you've after. When we turn things to post here and on the other online turning forums size can be very deceiving. You could cut that block of wood similar to what Hayes said or even into one 12 x 12 x 4 bowl blank and four 6 x 6 x 8 hollowform or vase blanks. Using waste/glue blocks you would get a lot of bang for that piece of wood and the resulting pieces would be nice and would photograph well for posting on a forum. But for strutting your stuff in person at SWAT, a big 11-12" hollowform is really going to pack some WOW factor in person. It will look nice in a photo too but a photo just doesn't do those big pieces justice. And you're going to end up with a lot of shavings and waste. Then again, if your purpose is for sales you have to ask yourself if you can sell a 12" hollowform for the price that compensates you for the mind numbing time and effort it takes to hollow something that large, along with the time you spend on pins and needles worrying about blowing it up. Or could you sell four nice hollowforms and pretty bowl for as much or more and have the pleasure of creating five different pieces. I know with me, I'd have to see the wood, see what the possibilities are of each scenario and then probably go on a whim anyway.

[Scott Hackler]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Curt, I think I really am leaning towards 1 large piece thing for a couple reasons. First for the reason that you menationed ...the WOW factor (if I pull it off) and second, because I don't know if I would have the guts to chop up a 12" cube of dry curly redwood!

[Jon McElwain]

I bet it would make a sweet looking sphere like David D. made a while back. It would be an impressive form I'm sure.

[Bill Wyko]

Scott, you've probably noticed, I like a challenge. I say challenge yourself with a big HF. That or cut it up into segments.

[Larry Pickering]

Go for the hollow form and change your signature line to; no, is's not big enough yet

[Roger Chandler]

Scott,

I like the idea of a larger than usual hf.........it would be a real attention grabber at a symposium or as a center piece for someone who saw it ...........that is one that would likely garner a nice price and make your efforts worthwhile if you wanted to show it at some gallery or even some event related to arts and crafts.

Making the curl pop will set it off and you will have a real fine piece for display!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Really hard to give an opinion on how best to cut a chunk of wood without seeing it. Like everyone states, a large hollow form would be impressive and command a fair price but you may limit your market appeal. If you cut the blank in half so that you had two 12" x 6" blanks, you would still be able to turn some fairly large hollow forms and then display them as a bookmarked set. Lots of options! Hope you are healing well!

[Wally Dickerman]

Scott, another option is to mount the blank on the diagonal. Mount it on one corner and also on the opposite corner. You'll only get one piece, and it will be a bit smaller but you'll get some interesting grain pastterns.