Collaboration with Keith Tompkins - Part I

Keith Tompkins sent me a lidded vessel and these two cone shaped things to play with. He wanted a carved oak leaf motif for the finials. Here's the start of my end of the project. The only major challenge with this is the wood. It's rock hard maple and it's a bear to carve.








After laying out the leaf outline with pencil, I did the roughout using a variety of hogging out burrs with the Foredom tool. My hands go numb after an hour of this, and I'm glad this part of the project is done. This and the next pic give you an idea of how the roughout proceeds.









There's a drill hole most of the way through the cone section. The walls are pretty thick.












The roughout is done and this gives an idea of how the finial will be composed.