Pear Pen Cup - February 2011

I made a pen cup as a gift for a friend of mine, whom I'll be seeing later this week.  It's made out of a pear branch, finished with wipe-on poly, and had carnuba wax applied with a 400-grit scotch brite pad.  I was very pleased with how straight the grain is.  You can see the dark pith still in it off-center, but it's solid and seems as hard as the surrounding wood.

A problem I had was when hollowing the inside, the gouge kept vibrating - you can see some of the ripple at the bottom in the one picture.  The black felt on the bottom serves two purposes - one is to pad the ends of any pens/pencils and the second is to cover up the ugly bottom on the inside.  Just could not seem to get it to smooth out no matter what tool or technique I tried... :(