Shades of Copper

[Dale Bright]

I hope you have more of these in your system, John, well done!!

Dale

[jeremy levine]

Just great

[Prashun Patel]

Amazing finish. Amazing all the way around.

[John Keeton]

You folks are gracious in your remarks! Thanks.

I do think I prefer your embedded copper flakes as a look though, maybe because it is even a little more subdued.

Glad to see you got the black figured out! Looks like it was worth the effort! Your finial is.... well, it is your finial! Very elegant and fitting for the piece!

Steve, it is hard to do "gaudy" with subdued accents. As we discussed during the finishing process on this one, the black gave me fits. So, as a learning lesson to pass on, I could find nothing that would work to tint WOP. I tried every black dye I had, universal paint tint, epoxy tinting pigment - nothing worked. I had a situation where I needed to apply more black to the fade, as well as the top, but several coats of finish had already been applied. More dye was not an option.

Shellac is the key! A few drops of Transtint black, and it produced a very bright, clear black that worked perfectly.

So, if you run into a similar problem, pull out the dewaxed shellac!

[David DeCristoforo]

"...I needed to apply more black to the fade, as well as the top, but several coats of finish had already been applied..."

I ran into a similar issue on my last "stoppered bottle" piece. I don't use WOP, being partial to lacquer. The big advantage on a piece like this is that alcohol based dye will "burn in" to lacquer so more color can be "rubbed in" after several coats of finish have been applied. The process is similar to French polishing. You might consider a lacquer finish on future pieces where you intend to fade one color into another. Just a thought...

[John Keeton]

Good thoughts, David. On this piece, the original fade was done with dye and an airbrush - with a good result. However, through a slight mishap in the finishing process, I needed a "touchup" but was unable to achieve that with dye. Had the original finish been lacquer as you suggest, that would have made the fix much easier.

Overall, I like lacquer, but the WOP seems more consistent for me. So long as I get a good initial result, and don't screw it up later, it seems to work OK.

Thanks, though, for the suggestion. If I had my druthers, I would prefer to have a professional spray setup, but as I have noted before, doing one piece at a time just seems to make that impractical.

[James Roberts]

To put it in the vernacular of my teenage son, "That's Freakin' Awesome!!" I agree with some of the other posters, this may be one of the finest pieces you have created. Thanks for sharing.

[jwjerry w kowalski]

One of the nicest turnings I have ever seen, absolutely beautiful!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Uniquely beautiful John.

[Rich Greinert]

Impressive work John. Very impressive.

[robert baccus]

Somewhere between WOW and Orgasmic!!--------------old forester

[Kathy Marshall]

Beautiful piece John! Really nice dye job and finish, just ditto what everyone else said!

[Jerry Rhoads]

Oh John, wow, wow, wow, wow, and WOW. that is a beauty

[Roger Chandler]

That one is "pretty nice" John.....

[Cheryl A. Prince]

Really nice work John! The effort and time you put into the finish really paid off with a wonderful fade between the light and dark! Keep those creative ideas coming as they inspire us all to step outside our comfort zone and try something new!