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Just getting started on a new piece from Eastern Red Cedar.  This piece of wood has wonderful character, colors, and grain patterns.  It will be a challenge to successfully hollow, but if I can manage it without a tool catch causing catastrophic failure I think this wonderful piece of cedar will be special.

I’ve been making and uploading videos of most of the pieces this week.  The videos are available if you drill down into the individual pieces on the Hollow Form and Bowl pages.  We’ve also created a “Sale” tab where we have put various pieces on sale.

I’m so happy to have successfully finished this piece ... hollowing cedar with holes in it is risky and challenging but it turned out great!  More pics and details can be seen on the Hollow Form Vessel page.

After 6 hours of work I have made good progress on this piece.  I have the basic exterior shape that I like and have it mounted in the steady rest and have started hollowing.  I have to progress carefully as there is a hole in the side of the vessel that will be midway up the finished piece. The lathe speed is relatively slow while hollowing and I really don’t want a catastrophic tool catch in that hole.  So far so good ... wall thickness in down to about 2 inches ... 1.75” or so to go.

A friend of mine gave me the stumps from a couple trees he had removed ... I’m pretty sure it is Eastern Red Cedar which is actually a type of Juniper.  It is beautiful wood ... full of colors and smells so good while working with it.  It can be difficult work with as it fractures easily and will likely crack a lot while drying.  That will likely give me plenty of opportunities for inlay work.  I’m thinking I will probably use malachite for the inlay.  This photo shows the piece I started with.