Fruit of the Lathe

About a year ago, a friend gave me a few pieces of a mature Silver Birch tree on his property that the power company insisted had to come down as it was overhanging power lines and a winter storm was approaching. I made a couple of natural edge bowls from it (one of which I gave back to him as thanks for sharing the wood with me, there's a picture of it on this page.)

While it was fun to turn them, were I to be totally honest I'd have to admit that the most interesting feature about these bowls was the bark edge. Other wood arrived, and it was easy to leave the other piece of birch on one side for later.

When I was tidying the stack of logs, I noticed some patterns on the end of one of the birch logs, and a closer look revealed that it had spalted -- which is the start of the rotting process, but can produce some wonderful patterns.

I put it on the lathe, and here's what was hiding inside -- the lesson I learned is that just because something looks plain at first, you never know what it might develop into. This log was definitely worth keeping!

Bowl made of Spalted Silver Birch.

A little over 10" diameter, about 3.5" deep, finished with multiple coats of Danish Oil, then buffed with Carnauba Wax.