What do you do with a piece of walnut full of Ant caverns and tunnels?
Edit: This pic shows the other half of the block I made the Ant Pool from.
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Well if you are really impressed with Alan Trout's pressure casting of burls with voids as I am, you try to imitate his process. Here is hoping that the imitation is flattering. I only have a standard paint type pressure pot, 2 gal I believe. This pretty much maxed it out as far as being able to get it into the pot.
Black Walnut with major ant tunneling and caverns. Finished it stands 8.5" tall and is just over 4" wide at its widest point. Hollowed to about 3/16" and full 8" depth. I was afraid to go thinner walled because some areas of the casting resin were starting to "rise" above the outer surface at 3/16. I was afraid it might come out. And yes I know that the curve has flat spots. I consider this one a prototype and paid most of my attention to the molding and casting process. The opening is 1-3/8" and the hollowing rig used was the Minnie Monster.
Here it is rough turned.
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Here I am making the mold from old pine scrape. Then after the molding and casting process cutting the mold away.
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This is the result. You might want to critique the photos of the finish vase also. I just upgraded my Paint Shop Pro from Version X2 to X4. The X4 version has HDR(High Dynamic Range) built into it. I set my camera to take a series of 3 photos, 1@-2 stops, 1@normal and 1@+2. The HDR function combines the best parts of the three shots. I let it use it's auto settings on these but in the future I think I will use fixed presets. Each of these are a little bit different in color but not bad for a first effort. The closest to what my eyes see is picture 1 but even it is a little warm.
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As always C&C welcomed.
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