Pouring Wood

This piece would be a honey pot held at an angle to give the look of wood flowing from it like honey. The first thing I needed to make was the honey, so I selected the only bit of wood with a slight orange colouration. Luckily it also had a large pith (the rings and centre that grows with the wood)

Normally you wood set the wood up on the lathe using its centre to try to balance it, but for off centre work you do the oposite, putting the wood at an angle between centres.
This makes for a lot of vibration so ensure that it is firmly held and I stood to one side whenever I started the lathe.

You can see from the pictures that there is a lot of blurring as the wood turns. This does not go away, so I had to be carefully to keep fingers behind the tool rest at all times.
I messed up the first attempt due to mounting the wood incorrectly. I wanted an S shape so that the wood would look like it was flowing away from the pot, but wound up making a C shape so had to star again.
One other important point, especially if you want to add multiple off centres to a piece and that is to sand each as you go.once you move the wood to another position you may not be able to return it later.

With the honey turned, I moved it so that it was almost centres on the lathe and used a parting tool to make the cut for the base. Doing this would mean that the honey would lean slightly and add to the effect of flowing.
I did not cut all the way through, I thought it a little dangerous to try to catch it as it came off. Instead I stopped almost all the way through, at which point I stopped the lathe and twisted the wood apart and then used a chisle to remove the nub of wood left.

With the honey off the lathe I used a handsaw to remove the idea of the top part a sanded the edges until it looked like the wood was flowing over an edge.

I started with a piece of Spalter beach mounted between centres. This let me rough it round and cut a small spigot to remount it on the chuck.

Once on the chuck I cut an approximate shape to the pot as well as starting a cut were the bottom would be.

With the rough shape made, I turned the head of the lathe round and used a combination of bowl gouge and scrapers to remove the inner material. And with that done I sprayed it with ebonizing paint. This was so that I could finish of the outer shape and clean up the edge between the inner and outer of the pot.

Before parting off I sanded the parts, using a number of grits. Starting at 80 the 120, 240 and finally 400. Once parted off I sanded the bases by mounting a sanding pad on the lathe and worked through the same grits. I also used this to shape the top of the honey to make it look like it was flowing from the top.

I decided where best the two would join at look the best, then marked it and used a dremel to remove the edge of the pot and recess the honey into its edge. Once happy with the possibility I used epoxy to attach the two parts.

Once set the piece was sprayed using a laquer, giving it four coats and lightly sanding between each with a fine abrasive pad.

The final piece looks great and the grain really gives the impression that the wood is flowing from the pot.
Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed and have a try yourselves.