A "Work In Progress"

I had to wait in for a package this morning so I attacked a this piece of laburnum.

This sort of thing is a bit of a challenge because it is out of balance, spinning quite fast and the tool spends most of its time in fresh air rather than against solid wood.
That means is it
a) likely to fly off the lathe and try to kill you (especially when the mounting is partially decayed so you can't tighten the hold as much as you should)
b) very easy to move the tip of the tool a fraction too far when it is in 'air' so that when 'wood' arrives the tool tip gets slammed down and the handle comes up very fast and tried to break your jaw - or the piece comes off the lathe and tries to kill you.

The shape also means that you cannot sand it smooth when spinning on the lathe (as would be normal practice) because
a) if you use a sanding disc on a drill, it will catch the edges and ruin the disc attachment
b) if it cathes the sanding disc it may come off the lathe and try to kill you
c) is you try hand sanding it will catch your fingers and remove them.
Therefor ....... you have to take it off the lathe and hand sand it.
Also, being a very dense hardwood it is a bugger to sand by hand.
You may also have noticed the voids in the wood which make it even harder.

So there will be several hours spent wearing my fingers to the bone sanding this before it gets its fianl coating of oil.

When it comes to selling, it will be one of those pieces that you can not get a realistic price for because nobody will pay for all the time spent making it.
Just as well I don't do it as a buisness.