After many hours figuring this out and hijacking the thread a bit and with the help of this forum I managed to make this in oak, walnut and sapele. The one from quarter sawn oak was my favourite…
that looks really nice. Must be very pleasing to hold
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Yeah it feels great. That’s half of why I got hooked on the original thread… I could see it was going to be nice to hold.
Some of the 3d textures that crop up on the forum look and feel great when machined in wood too.
Looks great!
I can’t tell from the photo - is it all milled as one solid piece including the base? or does the the surface sit in an indent and you can lift it out?
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Its 2 pieces. The grain gives it away; vertical for the sculpted piece and horizontal for the base.
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The base and sculpture are separate. The base has a relief machined in it that matches the shape so it just sits in it and yes you can just lift it out.
I did think about drilling a hole in the bottom and putting a thread in it so it could be screwed to a base but its too nice to try and drill a hole in it!
Did you get the reply to your email about Nat Friedman?
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It is in fact two different types of oak… The base is American White Oak and the sculpture is European Oak. I have probably just offended an oak traditionalist somewhere but that’s just what I had in the workshop when I made it.
I think left to right is Sapele, Walnut and Oak.
Oak was my favourite. The walnut had an annoying knot but the Sapele looked good after it was sanded and finished properly. I tried a small one in some wood called Lignum Vitae which is the most dense hardwood but it didn’t work out.
The CAM software I use only has a basic mesh offset feature for roughing where it just offsets in the Z direction so you can see roughing marks in the vertical sections of the surface. I also get left with a bit that the cutter can’t reach in the centre that needs a lot of sanding and the lip is quite thin and chips easily so I want to modify the shape before I try and machine any more.
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Have you tried playing with the shape in the WIP as a SubD?
If the form doesn’t break the _Bevel command’s brain, it could be a quick fix for your thin lip problem.
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Another reason for me to upgrade from R5!
I’m in the process of selling stuff to fund a license upgrade!
can you guess the rough one ?
If everyone who liked your first post chipped in €10 / $10 / £10 then you would be half way there (and counting…) 
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Beautiful work, Martyn!
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Very impressive indeed. Your idea of making a form fitting base with no physical attachment is brilliant.
Can you give the approx. size of the piece and the name of the machine you used to make it?
Thanks Birk.
Its about 300mm diameter and about 50mm depth.
I machined it on my 3axis CNC router that I made.
3 axis - impressive.
I machined each face and locate on dowels when I flip it over.
There’s a bit in the twist that I can’t get ti with a cutter and have to sand after.
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amazing stuff. Thanks for the link
Very beautiful sculpture! I like the idea of the part not attached to its base.