Of course, while I aspire to K.I.S.S. - I seldom am able to stick with it. So, to keep things interesting - I went with a hollow form - duh!
Here's the idea I settled on. Not too bad a form, though the base looks a bit wide but not too incongruous. The top opening isn't all that small so there won't be any Now How In The Hell Did He Hollow This Thing Out Through Such A Small Opening? distraction. It'll be a nice little pot. perhaps with some interesting grain to the wood. The Scurrying Thing surprise is what I'm after - and the looks it may produce.
But here's where the leap of faith comes in. As you can see, this is A Piece Within A Piece. It's the hollowing that's going to be tricky - even with the MiniMonster captured hollowing system - especially since I haven't fixed the laser which comes with it. This was going to be hollowed By Guess and By Golly (as in "by golly, I haven't turned through anything - yet!).
(If you want to see the procedure for turning this piece CLICK HERE)
Had I any brains at all, I'd have turned this piece from dry stabile wood. That would have simplified life considerably - no warping, no potential cracking, no turn a little, dry a little, let it sit a little in fresh shavings - repeat a couple of times a day - over a week or two. On the other hand, with all the blind cutting required, green wood makes life a little easier since catches - and with hollow forms there always seems to be at least one - are a bit less scary. Having a captured hollowing system didn't hurt either - I doubt I'd have tried doing this piece without one.
Six days into turning this piece things have gone surprisingly well and I've got this - shown close to actuall size, the BOT being in the foreground, appears like it won't fit under this pot's - but it does.
The piece has a Dark Side with a different look than the Light Side. Kind of interesting how that happened to work out - with a little help. Might be interesting to sand blast the piece to emphasize the curves of the grain lines - but I'm going to pass on that idea - with this first version of a Bot Pot. I've got another all black Bot to use if this Wild Hare makes it to completion - and works the way I hope it will. This Crawling Bowl/Pot idea just may become a very odd new series of pieces.
At this point it was time to weigh the piece. It was down to about 7 ounces - and just beginning to dry. Walls in most areas are under a quarter of an inch. I'm hoping to get the piece down to under 4 ounces. If push comes to shove, I can drill a bunch of holes in the bottom, to lighten things up, leaving enough wood to support the pot while resting on the Bot.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON - WEIGHT CONSTRAINT - DANGER, DANGER, DANGER.
How much wood CAN a MicroBot carry, if a MicroBot would carry wood? ----------->