Thread: she-oak/casuarina NSW advice

Originally Posted by Faulko

Hi all,
I flukes some chunks of a she-oak tree that was being removed from business's carpark. The figure isn't as spectacular as some I've seen, but I'm keen to give it a go. I've cut up some spindle blanks and removed the pith for some bowl blanks. Re. the bowl blanks - does anyone have any advice as to whether its best to rough turn, or how it goes turning wet to finished, thin bowl? Or best to leave for a while and come back to it once its dried a bit...?
thanks

Its a difficult tree to deal with as its shrinkage rate is one of the highest in the country. It doesnt matter if you have removed the pith it will open up quite a lot. I have found its better to let it dry out then turn. The sap wood will spalt very easily and it is very soft whereas the heart is very hard when dry.
On eof my recent posts is She-Oak Casurina.
Do you know which type ie Rose or Beach etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuarina as there are heaps of them.

look here this might help
Allocasuarina or Rose Sheoak

Sheoak will shrink a lot and I think it is best to let it dry first. I guess it depends on the size bowl you have in mind however as anything large will take a long time to dry. A thin sided one may work but i suspect there will be some shape change. Some people use that as a feature however. I turned a few small sheoak bowls wet and used the microwave on one but it cracked a few weeks later. Another one I let dry for 6 months and it ended up oval,almost boat shaped. There are other drying tricks like using the freezer or soaking in detergent but I have not tried those yet. In fact a lot of my wood drying efforts have been pretty ordinary.
You are on the right track by having removed the pith so the blanks should dry without cracking.
Regards
John

Thanks - i'm guessing, but looking at wikipedia, i reckon best bet is C.cunninhamiama, or maybe C.cristata. I don't know which is which re common names. I've sealed end grain on it all. fingers crossed I guess!

Thanks john. I am not too worried about shape change with a thin bowl, more worried about cracking.

Hi Faulko,
I scored some coastal sheoak earlier in the year - the tree had been down for a short time but was still pretty green.
Usually I would turn green and let the blank dry, then remount, re-turn and finish the job.
But with this lot, I thought I'd have a crack at turning green and thin, and letting it warp/move etc.
I did lose a couple that cracked, but with those I had contributed to the cracking by not steering away from the pith, or letting them dry to quickly in the summer heat - would have been better to plakky bag them.
Anyway, I managed to get a few good bowls completed, and was happy with the results.
The one thing I realised, doing bowls this way, is that it's a good idea to give the bowl a little sand every couple of days or weekly, as the outer layers dry out. That way you get the hard sanding done while the wood is still a little bit soft, and before the bowl goes too far out of shape.
Jeff

Thanks jeff. Like the bowls, esp the one with hole in rim. Sounds like u didnt completely finish the bowls...hence need to keep sanding..? Wondering why u didnt get it done in one go? Cheers adam

The challenge for me when sanding green wood is that it clogs the sandpaper so quickly. My approach was to let the top layer of wood dry a bit then sand again. I guess you could continue the sanding from go to whoa, but that would require more sandpaper than my Scottish heritage would allow. I did finish sanding the bowls on the lathe as they dried, but by the time I finished they were oval-ish making it a bit 'lumpy' as the lathe was spinning.
Well worth doing some green/thin, just for the experience.
Good luck with it, whatever you do.
Jeff

Hi there,

I sold a salted casuarina bowl from timber that was several years old, at a market a while back and the new owner used it as a single serve salad bowl, not something that I would have recommended. Anyway it developed a crack in the bottom that as a few mm wide. She contacted me to see if there was anything I could do. I made her a blue gum bowl of similar size and design and swapped her at the next market. By this time the crack had closed up to the point that it was hard to find. I glued it up, sanded and repolished and sold it as a decorative bowl.

All this is a long way of saying that this timber is obviously very reactive even when well seasoned which I find quite surprising given that it is so hard. I will be designating any future bowls from Casurina as decorative only and hope that this keeps me out of trouble.

Cheers,

Steve