Stardish NCC-1701-A

Description

This winter I have become intrigued with the star shape. I have done some wooden jewelry and wanted to do some wooden bowls. Instead, while visiting my stash of woods, I found this really neat hunk of maple. I did some etsy research and found nothing quite like it. So my stardish enterprise was born. "To boldly go where no one had been before".

This is from a 4/4 hunk of quilted Ambrosia Maple. It is so named because the ambrosia beetle had bored into the dead or dying tree and set up fungus farming. The beetle does not eat the tree, all the sawdust is expelled. Instead the beetle inoculates the passages with the ambrosia fungus, on which it feeds ( a symbiotic relationship). The result is bands of darker color and an occasional hole. I would have done a bowl, but the wood just wasn't thick enough

From a template I cut roughly cut out the shape. From there I have used hand held tools to bring forth my idea. A lot of the final result came from die makers files and hours of sanding. The wood is a tiger or quilted maple that has formed curly bands that reflect the light differently as the eye traverses the form.

The star form is inscribed on an eight inch diameter and the result is a little over 7 inches across every other point. This piece is finsihed with several coats of sanded polyurethane varnish, waxed and buffed.

you may ask "Where does he come up with this stuff". The simple answer is cabin fever, hours of hand sanding, and a love for a well developed pun. I would have hung it with fish line in front of a star field, but I am photographically challenged at best.

Added on Sep 08, 2009