Puriri Crotch Adventure
My wife seems to think I need help, isn’t every woodturner addicted to wood?
The fact is I probably shouldn’t go out with my woodie mates and get more wood as I will never get to the bottom of the heap, even if I did manage to turn 10 items a day for the rest of my life there would still be enough to make my box .The shame is they are going to burn it.
This piece of Puriri crotch was retrieved a couple of weeks ago on another addicts outing.
This Puriri would be in the 350 year old bracket at least and was blown over a few months back.
A 2 inch slab was cut so we can dress it up and count the growth rings .
I did a demo at a local rotary club and a lady approached me and said did I want some Puiri She had a large tree on her family’s farm that had blown over and it seemed a shame to have it cut into firewood.
How many times have we been told that such in such has a huge tree, to find it is no bigger than a garden bush?
Well this time we hit the jack pot, it has taken 4 of us 2 solid days to deal to this monster and there is still a sizeable amount left on sight. In the end we were getting picky as there was so much.
This is the first time that I have cut up a Puriri tree and there wasn’t an infestation of Puriri moths inside http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aenetus_virescens
This piece measures 15 inches long by 12 wide 3/8s thick
The hollow form was turned as part of the piece, I had to make the tool in the attachments so I could undercut the form yes Ed it looks like a skew but with a genital curve and sharpened quite steeply on both sides’ Sorby would have a heart attack if he saw what I do with some of their old chisels.
I keep these to butcher as I need them
The rings around the piece make it look like the hollow form splashed down into the crotch (the truth is it was hard to sand in there so I made some rings
I have left the ring on the bottom so as it dries I can decide were to carve the feet
The leaves were carved using real leaves as patterns, the hole to the hollow form I tried to recreate a Puriri moths exit hole .Unfortunately the sap will brown off some
As the piece dries it will have a few splits but that will add to the character .Finished with oil for know until dry then I will spray with lacquer
Comments welcome