Some Rough Turning

[Seventh Wood]

To All,

It seems a while since I turned a finished piece, as I have been distracted with enough fresh wood supply to keep me rough turning. Most of the timber is pickups from Adelaide suburbia (the sound of chainsaws and chippers).

I have done about 20 bowls and a about 30 box blanks recently. The box blanks I let season naturally but after a few cracked disasters in the bowls, I am sealing them with grain sealer. I don't yet know how they will turn out - I am too new to rough turning to have any pieces seasoned enough for turning yet.

Below is a selection of timbers and bowl styles - from the left, two in Brush Box (tree that died in the nearby park and retrieved from the Council workers), three Plane Tree (a local tree removal whereI retrieved a bootload), two Walnut (a friend's dead tree) and a couple of liquid amber (demolition of a friend's place and the tree had to go). There are also close-ups of the Brush Box and Plane roughies. Most of the bowls I turn a dovetail recess on the inside for later finish turnig of the outside

I am very impressed with the Brush Box figure and also the Plane Tree, less so with the walnut, and the liquid amber seems prone to cracking. The difference in workablity is quite different also - the Qld Brush Box is very hard but turned really well with a bowl gouge, but I preferred ripping out the Plane with scrapers. I have tried to bring out the ray pattern by quarter sawing some of the Plane, as well as other cuts to get different lacewood patterns - very much like silky oak.

One of these days I will post the end results - hopefully not all will end up as firewood!

Cheers,

7th Wood

[hughie]

Seal the blanks on the end grain asap. With the rough outs I put mine in cardboard boxes to season, flop the lid shut.Then check them on a regular basis if any cracks etc start up hit them with CA. If you have some timber types that are very prone to cracking try coating the outside with boiled linseed. This will slow down the process considerably, it works well for me.

[mkypenturner]

hi 7th wood
great job on the roughing great shapes not sure on using end grain sealer to seal them i use sanding sealer thinned 30 % to 70 % thinners on mine when roughing my stocks but it would prob work down there am in nth qld damn heat and humidity kills them if u dont do anything to them up here

[rsser]

Good haul.

Yep, plane tree can be nice. Just beware of bluestain, and larger lumps are a little prone to cracking even when sealed. The stuff is also fun to green turn; you can go very thin and get ripple edges on saucer size pieces.

The only Liquid Amber I've ever turned was boring in colour and figure and sucked up the oil finish like a lizard drinking but without filling.

[tea lady]

Looking good. I'll be turning my pile of logs into something like that soon :cool:.

[coffenup]

if you need a hand storing of the excess timber I may be able to help but it may not return as I may have to test some pieces E.G all of it:D:D:D
Regards Michael

[Little Festo]

Re the blue stain you could try painting the blanks with bleach (black and gold will do). I did this with some mango and on the pieces I painted with the bleach there are no signs of mold so maybe it will hold off the blue stain.

I paint with end-check, inside and out. Sometimes it is necessary to put another coat on a few weeks later after the first has dried. I notice more cracking occurring during winter when the humidity is down. Paper bags work ok but am going to try paper bags and shavings next time. Plastic bags work really well BUT mould generally results. The blanks need to be opend up after a months and the bags "turned inside out" to release trapped moisture, not a very plesant job sometimes. I have some interesting spaulted roughs, particularly some mango and sheoak, although the mango seems not to crack too badly if kept in a cool place - unlike the sheoak. The Sheoak can warp, twist and crack very badly.

Hope this is of some help.

Peter

[NeilS]

Always love the sight of a big pile of roughed out blanks..... as long as I don't start to think about all that sanding waiting to be done... :D