Curly Koa, Snakewood, Black Palm on Ebony Stand
19″ H (including stand) x 7-1/2″ D
From David: This piece features some magnificent curly Koa for the top of the vessel and a segmented rim of snakewood and ebony. The lower portion of the vessel is gilded with copper leaf over a textured surface. A chemical patina creates some darker areas on the copper, casting shadows onto some of the relief areas. On this vessel I decided to go for an amphora shape on the bottom so the base is completely rounded and therefore needs a stand to hold it up. I decided to use Gabon ebony for the stand because of its rich, classic black color. The stand itself is a major piece of work in that in order to create strength in the ebony ring, I segmented three rings and laminated those together with a staggered glue joint. Basically this is a brick lay technique which creates strength by overlapping the long grain over each joint. After the glue up, I mounted the ring on a series of back up blocks and completely turned the ring on the lathe. The legs are a tapered, bentwood lamination which allows me to shape these down to a 1/8 inch by 1/8 inch foot for a graceful stance. Each leg consists of five layers that taper to 3/32 of an inch down to 1/32 of an inch. To finish it off, I joined snakewood to cap the top of the legs for a decorative accent and snakewood buttons which I turned on the lathe to cap the brass pins that I used to lock the half lap joint between the joint and the rim. One of the final major details of the piece is the segmented rim of end grain black palm joined to the Koa as a separator ring to distinguish the Koa from the copper leaf base.