Recently the owner of a gallery I have items placed for sale called to advise me one of my vases suffered damage. The pictures here show the failure in the form of two cracks in the cherry and resin feature ring. The construction is maple, cherry and epoxy resin and took about 6 weeks of off and on attention. The staves were built from blanks that included the center 3 stripe feature where the cracks generated. Using a fixture / jig the 5 piece blanks were carefully cut to create the required staves for the upper and lower sections. As you can see the upper section of the vase failed miserably producing two major stress cracks in the cherry wood components of the center stripe. I suspect there are at least two reasons for this failure. The gallery environment while a very fine operation is located in the basement of a 175 year old stone mill. The climate there as you can imagine is a bit unique over the seasons. Coupled with this I believe, the design on the upper section that I guess can be called an inverted hyperbolic shape greatly contributed to uneven stress and the failure. As you will see the failure was quite wide at the top tapering down to the resin feature ring and even caused progression into the solid resin casting. The finish was 4-5 coats inside and out of wipe on poly and given the gallery environment I assumed this would offer a reasonable barrier to moisture entry. I have at least 6 other pieces there many of which have been on display for months and are holding up well. I have cut the entire upper section from the base and will set the lower vase aside while i think of any further commitment of time and effort to the piece. As we all know gravity, rust and wood movement never sleeps.......... stuff happens.........lessons learned.

That definitely sux! I hope, at some point, you can salvage/remake the base into something as beautiful as the original.

Thanks Lew,

I am sure I can regroup and save the lower part after i let it "season" for a bit. Couple of projects ahead of that try involving a pair of vases that will require 3 resin castings each. I have a mold making process and even though they will be lost molds I am pretty excited about building all 6 molds and having a go at my next disaster. As always thanks for you kind intrest and support.

mike c

Well that's a bummer for sure Mike especially given not only the work you put into it but how awesome it originally was.

No doubt in my mind with your creativity, patience and resolve you'll repurpose into another spectacular piece.

It happens, beautiful work though.