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dai sensei
4th August 2017, 06:38 PM
I client asked me to turn a baseball bat from a 65sq x 1150 piece of Totara. I turned it to the official USA sizes he gave me (so yes I got some offcuts) but he will then carve it with traditional family type carvings so it will only be decorative. He also asked me to dress up a 250x50x1500 rough sawn plank of it to so he could then make a stand for the bat which will also be carved. Happy to help him out as it sounds a really interesting project. Hopefully he will send me a photo of the finish project. He showed me some of his other carving works and I was impressed.

The timber reminded me a bit of Black Locust being a green yellow but darker and a bit softer. Unfortunately it also loves to tear out, and the plank had some beautiful twisted grain, so I ended up finishing it with the orbital sander after passing it through the thicknesser. The photo isn't that good but the grain is really nice.

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mummatoni
6th August 2017, 08:12 PM
Cool job

keep on plugging away

Christos
16th August 2017, 08:29 AM
It would be good to see the finished item on a stand.

dai sensei
17th September 2017, 02:12 PM
He came around and we shaped another piece of the wood into a stand using the scroll saw. The holes will ultimately hold the baseballs signed by the family members. I also turned a quick Sierra out of some scrap too. He took it all away and finished it including using some inlayed sanded down Paua shell.

Looks great to me.

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Kg1
17th September 2017, 05:17 PM
Nice work
Nz Totara one of the only timbers on planet earth with a H4 rating it can stay in the ground in a swamp or buried in dirt and it will not rot. It requires no treatment at all
Most of our Totara here in NZ is protected so the wood we get is swamp Totara just like our Kauri
The Totara we are using now has currently been sitting in a swamp down south for just over 92 years and it is still in perfect condition
There is a Balanese type home getting built at Orere point just outside of Auckland (20 million dollar build) that the
Intricate Balanese type roof construction is all done with 65 mm by 250mm Totara rafters
The house is 1000m2 plus and it is exquisite