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Floral Symmetry
mfoster

Floral Symmetry

The form of this piece is an icosahedron. This is a Platonic solid with 20 equilateral triangular faces. The piece was completed by turning an interior sphere as a box, gluing this together and then turning an exterior sphere. The piece was then marked out for the 20 centers and turned on 20 axes between centers. The form was then carved, pierced and colored to achieve the final result.

American Hophornbeam, India ink, Acrylics
6.5” x 6.5” x 6.5”
Beautiful work. Is this a sphere within a sphere similar to what David Springett does? I might be confused about the inner sphere part of the description.
 
Beautiful indeed. Beyond your usual.

As I understand it, he turned two hemi-spherical "bowls" from well-dimensioned stock, then glued them together. The well-dimensioned stock allowed precision turning of the outside sphere, concentric with the inside. No small feat in itself.
 
Bill, Joe pretty much nailed it. Getting the 2 spheres ( the inner hollow and outer sphere) also needs to take into account the tenon used to glue the halves together and still ensure the spheres are concentric once turned. Add into this calculating the thickness of wood needed to turn the icosahedron and still leave about 1/8" wall thickness at the center of each of the triangular faces where the wood becomes the thinnest. You can't just guess on this. You have to do the math, and follow that plan pretty accurately to pull it off. I didn't really know if all was well until I did the piercing on all of the center 3 petal flowers.
 

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