Bell Flower tutorial...

[Stick486]

Bell Flower tutorial from LeeValley...

[Cherryville Chuck]

I got that email too. Looks easy enough so when time permits I'll give it a try. I should have a gouge that's close to what's recommended. For anyone not familiar with the sand method of shading the tips of the petals they're talking about taking a pot or frying pan and heating some washed sand to fairly high temperature over a burner and dipping the tip of the veneer in the sand and lightly scorch it. By pulling the veneer out of the sand very slowly you can go from light to dark gradually.

Just wondering Stick if you ever heard of anyone shading the petals using a soldering iron? I intend to give that a try when I try making the bell flowers and see if it's a feasible alternative. If it is it should be simpler.

[Stick486]

Just wondering Stick if you ever heard of anyone shading the petals using a soldering iron? I intend to give that a try when I try making the bell flowers and see if it's a feasible alternative. If it is it should be simpler.

yes, particularly on the edges/rim - touch and drag...
back side for light shading, top side for darker...
never did it myself, I selected the inlay using the natural shading of the ray and grain patterns already in the veneer...
why not do some pyrography to the leaves???

[Cherryville Chuck]

A very thin dark edge might look more natural since most objects tend to have a natural shadow line around them. One of the ways you can tell photoshopping is that the foreground objects are too sharply delineated from the background. A very narrow shading around the edges might help in blending the petals into the background wood. That's of course if you are using light colored wood for the petals against something like walnut.