Piece in the "Turning 25 - A Celebration" exhibit at the AAW.



Oak Burl Vessel   View 1

 Quite a while ago I did a post about a piece that I was making for the "Turning 25 -  A Celebration" exhibit that is starting this Friday, 6/24, at the yearly symposium of the American Association of Woodturners (AAW) in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Turning 25 - A Celebration came about because the AAW is turning 25 this year and they decided to ask each chapter to enter a piece in an exhibit.  The chapters could do the piece as a collaborative effort amongst the members or choose a member to make the piece.  The only stipulation on the piece was that it couldn't be any larger than 8"x8"x8".  I was elected to make the piece because I was the only person who volunteered to make a piece for our club, the Western Mountain Woodturners.  There are approximately 225 chapters of the AAW world wide and the last that I knew just over 100 chapters were involved in the exhibit.


View 2


The original piece that I was making for the exhibit developed a crack near the bottom as I was thinning the wall down to it's final thickness.  Time was running out so I decided to use a piece that I had turned late last fall.  In the end I think the piece was a more fitting one for the exhibit anyways.  The wood that I used to make my hollow form was Oak Burl and it was won at one of our monthly meetings in our wood raffle.  Harry Burns was the member who had brought the piece of Oak Burl in for our clubs raffle.



View 3


The final dimensions of this piece are 6.5" tall x 8" in diameter.  The wall thickness is approximately 1/8" throughout most of the vessel.  And it weighs in at a whopping 11 ounces.  About 1/3 of the piece is open from natural voids in the wood.