I probably should have gone to bed around 23:00 last Saturday, when the party was finished, and I was still moderately sober. But I didn’t. Instead I decided this was the perfect time of day to do a little wood turning. After all, that’s why one has a workshop in the back garden (as opposed to a professional shop 20 miles away), right?
Initially all went to plan. Got the outside shape where I wanted it be, all nicely smoothed down and sanded to 400, then started hollowing out. I got the top 2 inches where I wanted them, and was just about to put the finishing touches on that part when I noticed a little bulge on the outside of my piece. So I stopped the lathe, and this is what ensued:
The top basically fell off by the pull of gravity. Well, not quite, but almost. Dang!
To be perfectly honest, I am not sure this would have gone much better had I been completely sober. In any case, lesson learned. And I may still get something decent out of the bottom half, which is still a reasonable size.
It’s just a shame, as this was a nice size, ca. 4″ diameter and 9″ tall. Would have made a nice vase, with some colour on it (probably various shades of green, blending into black at the bottom, and maybe blending towards yellow at the top) and nice lacquer finish. Well, there will be other pieces…