I had a little free time today, so I was out puttering in the shop. My wife picked up a piece I turned a few months ago and said, "How do you make something like this?" That statement led me to grab a chunk of something and give her the play-by-play. I figured I might as well take a few photos along the way in case somebody else might be interested in how I do stuff.

Here's my victim... It's a piece of elm burl, and it's pretty much dry.
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Here I've mounted it between centers using a drive center made by Jerry Mercantel... Thanks, Jerry. I like that I can adjust the piece of wood to obtain figure where I want it. On this piece, I just tried to balance the burl surface perpendicular to the bed of the lathe.
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Here's a photo after I've started roughing in the shape of the bottom, and I've formed my tenon.
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In the photo below, I've more or less accomplished the shape for the bottom and cleaned up the tenon. I've also sanded the exterior to 400 and applied a thin coat of super blonde shellac.
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Now I've got the piece reversed in my chuck, and I've checked to see that it's running true... By some miracle, it's good.
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Here's a shot after starting the curve on the top of the piece. My original intention was for a hollow form with a pretty small opening, but after seeing the figure along the margins, I decided for more of a closed bowl form. In order to accomplish my original plan, the form would have been much smaller, and I would have lost much of the figure that I just found.
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My wife has lost interest by this point, so here's a shot of one handed hollowing with the monster system... It really is that easy to hollow with an articulated system. Tool in one hand and camera in the other. I basically work the form down in stages getting my 'finished surface' on each level before proceeding deeper. I removed most of the waste with the straight cutter shown here and also the 45 degree cutter. I've got a few homemade bars that were used to get at the shoulder area.
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