See the bird?

This maple disc is about 12" in diameter and 3" thick, hollowed to about 3/16". I finished this with bleach and Krylon matte spray finish, and then it sat around for a long time. It is very light and fragile and getting moved around I was afraid I would break it, so I hid it away and forgot about it. When I saw it again, I made a large ring like this one out of a solid piece of thuya burl. Looked great, but it was intrinsically weak, as I found when it shattered as I drilled the hole in the bottom. So I started again, this time with hard maple, and dyed the ring to a color similar to the thuya. Then came the issue of mounting it. I intend to just mount it on a single pin the bottom and leaving open space all around it, but felt it would asking for trouble, so I turned and added to top aluminum finial as a top pivot point and that allows the piece to turn. I like it a lot better this way. The base is fir, wire brushed to get rid of some of soft wood, dyed with shoe dye and top coated with wipe on poly. The maple ring also has wipe on poly.

- Herman de Vries