Wood is beautiful but ??

[darley]

Hi ! I'm new to this forum and I like wood, I'm living in Queensland, I joint a club for wood turning and I would like to know from you "experts" to tell me all about the difference of woods, what is good for turning and the one who is not, we do have here a lots of mango and camphor and easy to turn but what about other species ? I did read a lot of post in this site and I learn a lot, for XMAS I will buy my first turning tools set from CARBA-TEC ( Hamlet set ) .

Thank you to read my post

Cheer:)

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day.

It's best if you ask your locals at the woodturning club.

In general...

Any free timber is good.... to a point.

Very soft timber is not necessarily good for learners.

Very hard timber is also not recommended for beginners.

Steer clear of "treated" timber. (Usually a greenish colour)

Fruit trees that are being pruned or removed from neighbour’s gardens can be good
but fruit wood does tend to go mouldy in tropical climates.

As a guide, if you try slicing the timber with a pocket knife in a couple of different directions &
it cuts cleanly without tearing the grain then it's worth a try on the lathe.

If in doubt, as a local.

[darley]

Thank you cliff for your anwser, about friut trees one of the member of the club mentioned Walnut wood do you think this is a good wood for turning?

Cheer:)

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day.

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

Which walnut? There are several.

I have only tried a PNG plantation grown 'Blackstripe' Walnut & it is beautiful. It was a bit expensive.

If the stuff you are talking about is free, give it a go & see.

[darley]

Thank you Cliff for your reply about the walnut I don't know the specie and if is free yes I will get some but I don't think so and I got a lot to learn about wood, I'm on the run to do some wood hunting :D I got a friend who cut down a Camphor laurel tree and he will bring me some but is too green to turn so I will store the log for later use or do you have any sugestion to turn it green :confused:

Cheer

darley

[ozwinner]

Try microwaveing your blanks.
Do a search for "microwave" on this BB
Cheers, Allan :)

[darley]

Thank you ozwinner for this informations and Gossssh ! I did learn a lot about drying green wood in my search ( read all post 13 of them ) I will have to try two method the microwave and the freeze, I have to do some garage sale to find an microwave, the one in the kitchen !!no way I may have a rolling pin on top of my head:D

Thanks a lot

Cheer

darley