Yew Beaut
I was going to call this Some thing special after my last post of Nothing special
But I think Yew Beaut is more appropriate
After seeing all of Eugenes Yew root pieces I have had a secret wish that one day I might find a bit of yew. When visiting a woody mate I spotted a narly old piece of root under his hedge. I enquired what it was. When he replied it was a Yew root and he didnt know what to do with it. I volunteered to take it off his hands in exchange for a piece of Kauri.
He thought I was crazy as this was destined for his fire heap.
This is the second piece I managed to make from the lump of dirt in cased yew.
This stuff was definitely out of my comfort zone as it was bone dry and as hard as a rock. I have never tried Pewter work inlays, another comfort zone adventure.
I finally managed to buy some casting pewter 2kg of the stuff in a big block.
I thought I had been didled as when I tried to heat it wouldnt melt; it took me a while to realize the block was acting as a heat sink and not getting hot enough.
A few cuts into thin slices on the band saw and I was finally away.
The voids were undercut with the dremel before I melted in the pewter with the aid of dams being made with aluminium tape. Then with a soldering iron (had to go and buy one of those also the old electric type with a large head as my gas heated one burnt the wood before the pewter melted.)
I had all sorts of fun trying to get the pewter in the voids it was like playing with liquid mercury, went everyway but the way I wanted it to.
Next I cut the pewter back to the wood and started to turn out the inside.
I wanted a inch wall thickness but didnt quite get to that as some of the pewter started falling out into the inside. Back to the drawing board, I managed to get inside with some surgical tweezers and put on some tape so I could recast the pewter.
I super glued in all the suckers as well this time .The inside is sanded to the same grit as the out side with my new toy a free wheeling sander from Woodcut.
A Coca bola finial was fitted; I have been saving this my only piece for a special occasion.
8 inches high A first for me as I finished with oil then waxed and buffed
Definitely out of my comfort zone
What do you think
