I decided to make another end-grain box like the one I'd given Sandy for retirement, but saw that the pear branch I had cut off was almost perfectly round and decided to try something different as an experiment. I've seen people do natural edge bowls online, so decided to so something similar with a box. I mounted the wood and turned the box as I ordinarily would, but left the bark on - lichen and all! As you can see in the pictures, it's not 100% round, but close. (Leaving the bark on, there's not much I could do about the tree growing out of round.) When you line up the bark striations, you have to look twice to tell it comes apart; more than one person picked it up and dropped the top because they didn't notice it was two pieces. Because of a lack of planning on my part, there was absolutely no sanding done on this box; the finish isn't the smoothest, but there are remarkably few tool marks for having no sanding done on it. (Especially when you consider how little experience I have turning!) It took a light touch with the parting tool and skew to cut and not rip off the bark. I've not seen a box like this posted anywhere before and wasn't certain if it'd work or how it would look, but it turned out pretty well IMO. I wish the branch had been rounder, but that's up the Mother Nature. (I've heard people on Antiques Roadshow say that something with flaws has 'character' - that's what this non-round effect is...)
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