Turned goblet with fire-bent stem and bark-edged base

Oct 19, 2026 Last reply: 5 hours ago 4 Replies

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torque_sage 2 days ago

When everything comes together, the result is a decorative goblet that stands on a bark-edged base, with a slender curved stem carrying a flared spalted bowl. Birdie Buster Golf turned the whole piece from a single log section, and that curve in the stem is the standout for me.

The build began with a rough bark-on log showing light sapwood around dark heartwood. A plastic center-finding gauge marked the middle, a drive spur was seated with a wooden mallet, and the blank went between centers. Once a tenon was turned, a scroll chuck took over holding the work. Gouges and a tailstock-mounted drill bit shaped and hollowed the cup, which was sanded inside and finished with a liquid wiped on using a shop towel. The stem was thinned to a delicate spindle with gouges and abrasives, then came the fire work: wrapped in foil, heated with a handheld torch, bent by hand, and tied with string until it cooled. A handsaw freed the live-edge base, and a spindle-mounted rotary sanding disc shaped the underside and waxed it.

What impresses me most is the crack treatment. The spalted wood carried deep natural checks, and black cyanoacrylate glue, set with an aerosol accelerator, filled them. In my view that is a tidy way to keep dramatic spalting usable instead of losing the blank.

One thing stays open: the species was never confirmed, and the maker asked viewers whether the wood is black maple. I would genuinely like to know for sure.

Project by Birdie Buster Golf . Watch it on their YouTube channel:

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IronCal_1977 2 days ago

I keep coming back to that stem bend. Once the foil came off and the string was cut, did the curve settle right where the maker wanted it, or was there any movement while the wood cooled? The timing of heating, bending and tying off seems like the trickiest part of this whole piece to judge from the outside.

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Alex_Stone 2 days ago

Filling deep checks with black CA set by accelerator reads to me as a smart call. The dark lines sit comfortably alongside the spalting rather than fighting it, and the piece keeps its wild figure instead of the blank being written off. The trade-off, as I see it, is that the repairs become a permanent part of the look, so the color choice has to feel right from the start.

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forge_mule 2 days ago

If the maker revisits this design, a lighter-colored CA in some of the fills could be worth a try. The glue comes in different thicknesses and colors, and on a piece this decorative a contrasting tone might trace the checks on purpose rather than hide them. That could turn the repairs into a deliberate feature of the bowl.

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FarmerMaple_1961 2 days ago

The stem was thinned to a delicate spindle with gouges and abrasives, then wrapped in foil, heated with a handheld torch, bent by hand, and tied with string until it cooled. Whether the curve held exactly or shifted a little afterward is something the maker has not said.

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