My first true commissioned piece.

[Toney Robertson]

This is a piece that was commissioned by a lady for her son's wedding. It was one of the few benefits of doing the Club exhibit.

Spalted maple of course. 13 1/4" x 5 7/8" finished with tung oil and then buffed.

It is the first time that I have seen green streaks in the spalting.

As always, all comments welcomed.

Toney

[Norm Zax]

Well done Toney! Classic bowl.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Toney - congrats on your commission! Great looking bowl! Beautiful wood and I really like the fullness of the form! I am sure your customer was thrilled with your work! Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

[Brian Novotny]

Nice work, with all of that spalting it really takes finess to keep the piece together. Nice wood, but nice job not ripping apart a heavily decayed piece of wood.....I think that's why you usually don't see that much spalting in a piece. Heavily spalted wood can really be a headache if you don't know what to expect....and if you don't stop and look often you can pass right thru alot of it.....Nice job.

[Richard Madison]

That's a beauty Toney. And the rim treatment gives it a little something extra. Nice work and nice wood.

[Brian Novotny]

Wherever exactly that piece of wood came from probably gets one of the higher percentages of rainfall in the country. I'm guessing. I've only seen spalting like that on the hilo side of the big island of hawaii where everything is spalted and hard as hell to work with. the only woods out there that aren't affected by decay are the woods that only grow at about 3000 feet and up like koa and milo. The only picture I have of anything I done is that bowl up there that I turned from a koa log in 10 minutes to show our customers the grade of koa we had. we were getting 4 foot logs a foot in diameter for $15. Too bad in that piece I was in such a rush I took passes straight thru the curly figure.

[Toney Robertson]

Originally Posted by Brian Novotny

Wherever exactly that piece of wood came from probably gets one of the higher percentages of rainfall in the country. I'm guessing. I've only seen spalting like that on the hilo side of the big island of hawaii where everything is spalted and hard as hell to work with. the only woods out there that aren't affected by decay are the woods that only grow at about 3000 feet and up like koa and milo. The only picture I have of anything I done is that bowl up there that I turned from a koa log in 10 minutes to show our customers the grade of koa we had. we were getting 4 foot logs a foot in diameter for $15. Too bad in that piece I was in such a rush I took passes straight thru the curly figure.

Brian,

That piece of wood came from right here in central Indiana. They had trimmed the tree too much and killed it. It then stood for several years before it was cut down recently. Here it is in log form. I had two trees like this. I really hit the jackpot.





Toney

[Bernie Weishapl]

Congrats Toney on the first commission and that is a great looking piece.

[Brian Novotny]

Originally Posted by Toney Robertson

Brian,

That piece of wood came from right here in central Indiana. They had trimmed the tree too much and killed it. It then stood for several years before it was cut down recently. Here it is in log form. I had two trees like this. I really hit the jackpot.





Toney

oh, you definitely stopped often to see what you were doing. You could have EASILY taken passes straight thru the spalting if you weren't watching after each pass or two, and I'm only guesing that that's what you did. I doubt it was an accident, sure the spalting was there, but the majority could have been missed or cut thru only to give you the spalting that occured all the way thru the log on the sides. Bringing out the spalting on the bottom I think usually takes a look after almost every pass..... Maybe it was just good wood and it would have happened anyway. Who knows?

[Paul Engle]

I see that a lot in the spalted birch around here in Idaho , first time I encountered it I shaped the bowl to try and save as much as I could. I think the biologist told me the mold or " bug" was still acitive and the green turns to brown but I cannot find his email so this may just be a guess ... sure is pretty cool though when you find it and can save it.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

You did such a nice job on that. I love spalted wood. How did you do the edge treatment? It just adds to the overall look of the bowl.

[Toney Robertson]

Originally Posted by Alan Tolchinsky

You did such a nice job on that. I love spalted wood. How did you do the edge treatment? It just adds to the overall look of the bowl.

Alan,

Thanks for the nice comments. I am still not sold of the rim of this piece. I just never know what to do.

I have a round shafted tool that I ground a point on. That is what I did the rings with.

Toney

[Jim C Bradley]

Hi Toney,

Beautiful Bowl and I will add my vote to the rim treatment. Whoever gets the bowl should be as happy as a bird on a sunflower farm.

I sure hope I can get good enough to do something like that.

Enjoy,

Jim

[alex carey]

Beautiful piece of wood and love the shape, especially the rim.

[Jeff Nicol]

Toney, Very nice job on a simple standard form! The spalting is perfect and shape dead on. I to have some trouble with rim design, it would be nice to have a computer to generate a bunch of looks from a picture and then pic the one you like best!

Nice job,

Jeff