(Another) Cottonwood Crotch Platter

[Doug Herzberg]

This one was a pain, from beginning to end. It warped a lot as it dried, to the extent that I'm lucky to have a disk all in one plane. It came off the lathe and cracked. It had yellow CA stain on another crack. It's held together by epoxy and white glue. I washed it with Transtint golden brown dissolved in DNA, then used the same brush to seal coat it in shellac. The dye effectively hid the CA stain and popped the grain a little. I originally finished it in gloss WOP, but added a top coat of satin WOP. The gloss showed too many of my errors, which are legion in this piece.
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Cottonwood, 15" x 1", Transtint, shellac, satin WOP, paste wax.

[Shawn Pachlhofer]

challenges aside...I think this piece is a beauty!

[David Delo]

Looks like the wait was worth it to me. Very pretty piece Doug.

[daryl moses]

Looks good from here Doug. You got that flame nice and centered. Love the finish on it!!

[Barry McFadden]

Great looking platter.......

[Eric Gourieux]

That's a beautiful piece. Well done. I can't even see your "errors".

[robert baccus]

Very, very, very nice.

[Steve Huffman]

That's a real beauty Doug. I like the finish, coloring and how you finished up the bottom. Very Nice Work!

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Very nice decorating piece Doug, awesome color and grain with the chatoyance shimmer, a beauty for sure 1thumb.gif

[gary arnold]

Wow!
Very nice.

[Michelle Rich]

it may be fraught with problems, but beauty ain't one of them. stunning figure

[William C Rogers]

Doug. Beautiful piece. Amazing finish. I can't see any errors at all. Nice job.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Joyce Kilmer said it best in his Poem, "Trees".

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree........... Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

[Doug Herzberg]

Joyce Kilmer said it best in his Poem, "Trees".

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree........... Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

Well said, Faust. I feel silly taking any credit for the beauty that was there all along. My craftsmanship was mediocre all along and the reason people can't see my errors is the camera doesn't show everything. I'm not Michelangelo, who claimed his sculptures were always there, inside the marble, and he just removed the excess. My only contribution was to hope the beauty was there and to make the effort to try to find it.

The top of this platter is not perfectly flat, but I couldn't see it until the finish went on. I would have needed a brake lathe to get a flat surface, and even that may not have worked the way the wood was moving. There's a run in the finish on the back and I'm just too lazy to fix it. The reason it came off the lathe and cracked is I put anti-seize compound on the spindle threads and didn't use a grub screw. Despite all this, the wood is beautiful and worth the effort. I appreciate all the nice comments. Many of you have skills far beyond mine and it means a lot when you say something nice.

This is one of the first pieces I've done with my new Thompson 3/4" scraper. It was a joy to work with and allowed me to do things I've never done before, so kudos to Doug for making a fine tool.

I've been thinking about how decisions in the past affect my actions today. I'm turning pine and cottonwood now, whether I want to or not, because two and three years ago I saved wood from those trees. I remember telling the tree trimmer to give me the crotches and haul away the rest of the tree. I got a funny look, because crotches are the worst firewood and why else would anyone want cottonwood? I suppose there's a life lesson in that, but I have to go fix a shower for a tenant, so back to the drudgery of earning a living.

[Pat Scott]

Absolutely stunning, simply beautiful. I'd be proud of that one for sure!