Darned darning egg

That black spot is pith - the very center of the growth rings. You can see them converging to it by the end grain on the top surface. The only thing that will get rid of it is turning it out - reducing the diameter until it's all gone. This is already at the finished diamter, tho.


The pith runs almost vertically thru it, so it's at the other end, too. Worse yet, there are cracks radiating from it. I planned for this to be the handle end, because it looks like there's enough un-cracked meat at the center to fit a handle in there.

This is half of a bigger piece of walnut that I started with - maybe the other half will work.