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This photo gives a good idea of the basic form the piece will take.  I have to do some preliminary inlay work in spots to get a smooth surface all the way round the circumference in the area the wheels on the steady rest will ride.  After I get that done and the steady rest mounted I can begin hollowing.  The hollowing on this large piece will take quite a while I think.

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This will be another piece that is about at the capacity my lathe can handle.  I roughed it out with the chainsaw and managed to get it mounted in the lathe. It is a very cool chunk of old “Rich Lighter” Ponderosa Pine from the same tree as my last piece.  I think the starting blank in the lathe weighed about 150lbs.  This hollow form vessel will have both crushed mineral inlay as well as solid mineral lapidary inlay when finished.  It will be in the neighborhood of 17” diameter x 22” tall I think.

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After a very long 9 days of work on this piece it is finished!  I’m very happy with how it turned out as it was a challenging piece to turn and inlay.  It measures 18” diameter x 15.5” high with a 4.875” opening.  It has a CA finished buffed to 50,00 grit.  There are more photos in the hollow form vessel gallery on this site.

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I’ve been hollowing the last couple of days.  There is a lot of volume to remove.  I’ve had to stop a couple times and do some inlay work to help stabilize the shell of the vessel as this old piece of wood has some defects that require inlay work to strengthen it so that I can get it successfully hollowed out.  The photo shows some of the specialty hollowing equipment I use.

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I’ve settled on the basic shape and it shouldn’t change much.  Looks like it will be about 18.5” diameter and I’ll be starting the hollowing process next.  I still need to decide how much inlay and how many holes I will ultimately leave in the wall of the vessel.

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