Wood Turning

After seeing the work of Fernando Verez Tojeiro and Gerrit Van Ness, I had the idea to create a sculpture that I’m calling “The Honeypot.” The sculpture consists of two pieces of walnut and one piece of maple, and actually isn’t as complicated as it looks.

The first step is to make the pot. I used a piece of walnut roughly 5 1/2” by 4” and turned a simple pot with some beaded details. It’s nothing fancy, but the simple, elegant shape accentuates the piece without overwhelming the rest of the elements. The only thing to watch out for here is getting too much wax inside the pot while sanding, because that makes it more difficult to glue everything together.

The flowing honey is made from maple. This requires some off-center turning, which is a more advanced technique. You’ll want to keep your RPMs low and work carefully, because spinning an off-center weight too quickly – especially on a smaller lathe – can cause the machine to walk around the room or try to throw the workpiece at you.

I used a carbide finisher to create the drips at the base. The “pour” widens as it nears the base, just like honey tends to do. I cut away excess material at the bandsaw, then cleaned up with the oscillating spindle sander.

From here, it’s a matter of carving away material using gouges and chisels to create the dripping appearance. I cut away the round section at the top using a pull saw (and managed to catch my finger in the process – ouch!). From here, it’s just a lot of hand sanding. A LOT of hand sanding. The clear finish I used brings out the honey tones of the maple and the gloss gives it a wet appearance.

The base is just a block of walnut with some attractive grain. Don’t over-think this part – and don’t apply finish to the area that will get glued to the maple!

All in all, I love how this project came out, and I don’t even mind the injured finger. The whole project took about a day, but 90% of that was hand sanding (and thus not in the video).

Thanks for watching, and let me know what you think!