Spectraply Bowl Interior 1
If you do manage to avoid contaminating the white areas with the omnipresent purple during turning, you will without question, as far as I can see, have the problem the moment you use any sanding material, paper or screen, because the layers are simply too minute to avoid touching across multiple colors when sanding. And this process will smear purple colored sanding dust all over every speck of white space, creating at best, a “dirty” appearance.
This lack of color fastness will really come home to roost once you attempt a rubbed finish. I was afraid to use a liquid finish of any kind, shellac-based or otherwise, because of the color transfer concern so instead I, foolishly it turned out, opted for a plain wax finish. The wax itself transfers the extremely unfast dye just as easily as any other medium would seem to do, further creating a muddy purple finish color tone to the formerly white areas, compounding the “dirty” appearance. When I turned the second blank I had intended to use a spray lacquer finish to try to help avoid this issue, but somehow I failed to remember my intentions and I used Shellawax and experienced the same ugly color transfer and mixing as I had before.
Spectraply Bowl Reverse
I can’t speak, therefore, to whether or not a sprayed finish would resolve at least part of the color transfer problem, or not, but I can say that the color transfer would already have been an issue just with the dust generation during sanding and turning, and that given the softness of the birch used to make the Spectraply I can’t conceive of a way to prevent that problem completely unless different dyes were used that were much faster than those used to create the red and the blue.
It has occurred to me that the problem might be the two particular colors that happened to be the only examples of bowl blank sized Spectraply available at the time that I ordered it. Perhaps some of the yellows or greens that are used in other combinations of Spectraply would have less color transfer problem than the red and the blue that I used, but again, I can’s say for certain.
Spectraply Bowl
However, regardless of the colors used, the problems with the plainness and the obvious fake nature of the extreme colors would still be an issue in any flat areas of the blank when used in a bowl form. When used to create a pen, pencil, or even a mill shape these concerns are eliminated by the nature of the form, but in a bowl shape there is simply not a realistic way that I can think of to avoid it and therefore I do not believe that Spectraply, regardless of the color transfer issues which might have a solution that I didn’t think of or employ, makes a reasonable bowl blank material. I’m sad to say it, but I do think that this material, if it should become available on the market again, should not venture outside use as a spindle material for any reason.
However, that said, I would always encourage any wood turner to experiment for themselves with any material, tool, finish, or process/procedure as opposed to simply taking someone else’s word for it. What doesn’t work for one turner might just happen to find brilliant expression and success in the hands of another. In fact I think there is a good life lesson in there that extends far beyond just wood turning but I will leave that philosophical exploration to another place and another time. Until then, enjoy your projects and adventures, whatever they may be, and for everyone out there who is a fan of the wood lathe, do a good turn today.