Cherry Finial

A fellow woodworker came to me recently and asked me to turn a flame and urn finial for the headboard of a bed he was building. He said that he would handle the carved elements but asked me to do the turning. He provided the following template and a cherry turning blank. The first step in the process was to turn the blank into a cylinder. the blank was large enough to accomodate two turnings so I turned the whole blank so I would have a back up in the event of a mistake.Below is a photo of the blank turned to a rough cylinder.After completing the urn section, I turned most of the flame part. the next step was to sand as much as possible before removing the blank section . The last step would be finishing the flame tip, sanding the rest of the piece and turning down the tenon at the bottom. This is saved for last because it is the thinnest part of the turning and because of it's location in the finial, the weakest. Below is a photo of the completed turning, sanded and ready for carving, The Finial will get finished later after the carving is completed.