I roughed out this cherry shrink pot with split sides a few years ago. It cracked a couple days into drying, leaving a 1/2″ wide gap. It’s a rare occurrence, but sometimes you get lucky.

My first inclination was to burn it. After all, I’ve got lots of uncracked shrink pots waiting to be finished. But I kept it around, hoping for the right time and inspiration. I started thinking about a line attributed to Groucho Marx, a play on the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.

So, recently I returned to the long-neglected shrink pot. Although the bottom was still in its groove, I pinned the sides to the bottom board with some bamboo pins (skewers) to make sure it stayed that way. After checking that the bottom surface sat flat, I marked the top surface parallel by spinning it around against a stationary pencil point as in the photo above. Then I sawed and planed it to the line.

I wanted a cherry lid, but I didn’t have any dry cherry boards around. I grabbed a chunk of dry cherry from the firewood stack and sawed off both checked ends.

I flattened the short piece that remained with a drawknife, then a plane. With a coping saw and knife, I shaped the lid to match the irregular exterior of the pot, then carved a rabbet to match the interior. After working out the lettering through some sketching on paper, I drew it again on the lid and carved the words.

I returned to the firewood pile again and found a curving piece of dry hickory. I split out a thin piece and carved a tenon onto one end. The mortise is outlined in pencil on the lid in the photo above.

There it is in place on the finished lid. It’s a comfortable handle and finial.

These are the three tools I used to carve the lettering. The gouges just for the tighter curves of these small letters. The letters range from 1/4″ to 3/4″ in height.

To keep the lid from rotating at all, I inserted two registration pins into the lid. The bottom of the finial tenon can be seen on the underside of the lid, too.

The bottom of the pot and the bottom of the lid.

This one is available for purchase. The exterior is finished with linseed oil. The color of the cherry has already deepened a little beyond that in the photos after a couple days in the intense sunlight to cure the oil. 10 1/2″ high overall (6 1/4″ to the top of the lid) and 5 1/2″ wide at the base. $725 includes shipping. If you’re interested, please email me at dandkfish@gmail.com. Thank you. Update: SOLD

I’m planning to teach classes on (uncracked) shrink pots next year at Pete Galbert’s. I’ll get a course description together soon and get it posted to Pete’s site. Shrink pots offer many possibilities and I’m excited about it. I’m looking forward to making more designs in the coming months, so you’ll be hearing more about them.