Impatience for the Work

  I'm wondering if other woodworkers suffer this malady: after thinking through design options and solving many problems, there seems to be a certain threshold that is crossed in thinking through the process of making something.  It isn't intimidation, it isn't fear of failure, and it isn't really impatience. I think it is simply a lack of interest in the piece after the challenges are solved.

  Before final completion, when I can at last 'see' what the finished product is going to look like, and when I know it is stable and no longer threatened with disintegration, I so often feel like setting it aside and getting on to the next one. Here's a vase form of spalted birch that I've set a narrow collar on, shaped and filled with ca glue and sawdust to fill small, unsightly gaps and flaws, sanded wet with oil and successfully hollowed out to about 3/4 of its depth.

  I'm anxious to get this thing completed and off the lathe.  I've little interest in it now.

  And this may be the reason, a 14" walnut blank 3" deep given by a friend, with another below it waiting to be assessed and its shape determined.  Just look at the streaks of color in that side grain!  I cannot Wait to get to it and see what it will reveal.

Meanwhile I have to finish the spalted birch vase.  I'm really just humming along trying to hurry the old project so I can get to the new.  Having so much beautiful wood all at the same time is a curse,  I tell you...it's a curse.  Back to the shop!