Turning red cedar windfalls

[bruceward51]

Visiting a friend’s new hobby farm last weekend and delighted to see numerous mature red cedars. I returned with a windfall piece and a promise of some salt and pepper grinders. I also scrounged some old ironbark flitches from a Shed on the farm.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180513/a7b87666555fb1e25531d2f0f35e3c89.jpg

The timber is reasonably dry but has a big worm hole up the middle and a punky centre. I plan to use a crushgrind mechanism and have been pondering the best approach.
One idea is to drill out the punky centre and glue in a scrap piece. I can easily inlay a piece at the top so the scrap does not show but I am a bit worried about the softness of the Cedar timber as well.
My other thought was to stabilize the whole blank, but I have not done that before. Do you need a vacuum chamber to stabilize with cactus juice, or could I get away with a long soak? And would the stabilized wood loose the nice feel of the cedar?
The colour of the timber looks good when freshly cut, so I think it is worth a go. And hopefully I can find even better pieces next time. The bribes are ready in the form of a nice nest of bowls from the ironbark flitches!


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[powderpost]

Bruce, I may be speaking out of turn, but if I had that piece of timber, Iwouldn't waste any time even thinking about using it... for anything.
Sorry if you find that comment offensive.

Jim

[dai sensei]

Forget stabilising it, a setup for pepper grinders will cost you ~$1K, plus punky cedar is crap. How big is the log? Your usable timber is between the red lines, so can you get a 75sq within them?

435287

If not, I'd quarter saw the usable timber into 25mm slabs, then laminate them together to form your blank. You could also insert 2mm lighter coloured timber between them, or some other form of segmental pattern.

[Mobyturns]

Bruce, I may be speaking out of turn, but if I had that piece of timber, Iwouldn't waste any time even thinking about using it... for anything.
Sorry if you find that comment offensive.

Jim

I wouldn't go that far, but at a guess it seems to be branch wood at about 100-125mm dia which certainly makes it a challenge to get pepper grinder blanks out of it. The colour of the wood and bark also suggests that it has a ways to go to be considered dry. The crush grind mechanism requires stable solid wood to engage into so another challenge. If you have access to wood working machinery, it would be possible to machine enough timber to make a staved pepper mill blank then turn it.

[dubrosa22]

Or you could learn to play the Didge? :2tsup:

[bruceward51]

Thanks for the discussion. No I am not offended by the suggestion that the wood is rubbish. After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure! I enjoy the challenge of turning something worthless into something nice.

The pieces are not very big - maybe 100mm diameter not including the bark. The punky pith is about 40mm. So I am not sure that there is enough to mill and laminate. On the moisture content, it was reading 35% on my moisture meter when I got home, but after a week in my workshop it had dropped to 18-20%. I am thinking that it had probably been down for a year or so and is reasonably seasoned, but wet from lying on the ground. I will keep thinking on it while I see how the moisture level goes over the next few weeks.

I think I may try the coring option - drill out the core and then glue in a replacement core. The grinder mechanism will fit into the new core. I figure the all I have to lose is the time, and a few scrap pieces of stable timber for the cores. I have a wood fire for the pieces that don't work out!

[brainstrust]

What about slicing some nice "planks" off the outer. Not all wood must be turned!

[smiife]

I think I may try the coring option - drill out the core and then glue in a replacement core. The grinder mechanism will fit into the new core. I figure the all I have to lose is the time, and a few scrap pieces of stable timber for the cores. I have a wood fire for the pieces that don't work out!

Hi bruce , you should do whatever you want with It ,
If It doesn, t work out ,,,,,,, hey! ?...... more firewood:C

[Lyle]

I like your spirit. Whatever you do with it woodwork wise, please keep us in the loop.
Ideas and inspirations come from others work.
Good luck and looking forward to what you do with it.
Lyle

[artful bodger]

Looking forward to the transformation.
Sows ear into silk purse.

[Toymaker Len]

Yes to the 'slice and laminate' then you can choose the best grain to face out. Also it is well worth persisting as small cedar like this still has the classic smell and often a miniaturised and exaggerated colour and grain. I salvaged a little struggler of a red cedar from the street in newcastle a few years ago where it had been dumped for council pick-up, beautiful grain and smell.

[Xanthorrhoeas]

Yes, cedar is a lovely wood in any form. Have fun with it. Look forward to results photos. Even punky timber with some epoxy two-pack hardener or similar in it can look very interesting. I would give that a try before coring, if it were me.
David

[bruceward51]

Looking forward to the transformation.
Sows ear into silk purse.

It may take a while for the wood to dry sufficiently, but here is a pic of a pair of grinders I turned out of similar (but solid) branch wood from crabapple. Note the big crack in one, filled with black epoxy. Not perfect but popular gifts.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180518/d1b254c456ccf7568bd2b9f5a6f8846a.jpg


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[bruceward51]

Yes, cedar is a lovely wood in any form. Have fun with it. Look forward to results photos. Even punky timber with some epoxy two-pack hardener or similar in it can look very interesting. I would give that a try before coring, if it were me.
David

I don’t want to have the hollow centre of the grinder, with the salt or pepper in direct contact, through the punky wood. Hence my first questions about cactus juice stabilizing. I guess another way might be to hollow out oversize, fill with resin and then re-drill with a smaller bit. I would prefer to work with wood and think.


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[bruceward51]

To update on this project, I debarked and rough-turned the two pieces of timber. They dried out very quickly after that so I drilled out the punky centre and glued in a piece of Himalayan cedar that I had on hand as a core.

I had to fill some large worm holes that came to the surface on one blank and I did this with tinted resin. I took my time turning the two grinders and it all went quite smoothly.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180614/0345cf1e1abfb6e8558d04160891fadc.jpg

The resin is not visible in the photos but to me looks ok for the purpose.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180614/da1b67a0e9084b5ba560600ae36633d0.jpg

The core is visible on the inside but looks neat and tidy. I inlayed blocks of timber as a feature on the top and this covered the core very nicely I think.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180614/3a8adfd6c46a9400545e19bf5997cf5d.jpg
The pale insert is a scrap of Huon pine and the other is a reclaimed scrap of old growth red cedar from a 100 year-old door in my house.

The end result is not perfect but will be loved by the new owners. The fact that the grinders are made from their own farm more than makes up for the imperfections. And the resin-filled worm tracks tell a story about why good red cedar is so rare - the cedar grubs eat quite a bit of it!


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