Tea tray finally done

Well, its been a pretty long time since i started working on this tea tray. in fact, it really started during the winter of 09/10, when i found some local maple that was sawn down, convinced bill to get a load of it with me, and stored it in bill’s garage for all of 2010 waiting patiently for it to dry. as you can see when i first started working on it late last year, it still had not fully dried, and got lots of cracks.

well, between filling those cracks with epoxy, sanding and well, not working on it due to wanting to make bowls all the time, my tea tray is finally done, and I’m pretty proud of it.

just for comparison, this is what it started out as.

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and now…..
it looks like this.

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thats with full tea ceremony paraphernalia. yes, the water buffalo is essential.

with all the reflections is pretty hard to see, but the heartwood is almost certainly my favorite
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you can see it much better here. incidentally the drain cover was an afterthought, but i think its one of my favourite parts now too. i made it out of teak, turned on the lathe, and then carved out the design after.
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hes so important to everything. doesn’t he look like he’s right at home?
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on the right there, I’m pretty sure the tree was struck by lightening.
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and pouring some tea
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This project has really been after me for a while. I’m glad to have it be done, and can’t wait to have people over and drink tea together.