Tornatus
25th August 2009, 07:18 PM
Some time ago my local club, the Woodcraft Guild of the ACT, was given a quantity of slabs of Blakely's Redgum (Eucalyptus blakelyi) from a large mature tree that had fallen victim to urban expansion. We carefully sealed, stickered and stacked this timber in our drying shed, with glints in the eyes of our furniture makers, and turners making bids for any promising offcuts.
We were disappointed to find, however, that after a decent seasoning period, most of the slabs had cracked badly, and none had furniture potential. Even the turners found it difficult to cut usable blanks, but some of us persisted and recovered a few bowl/platter blanks, as well as spindle material.
Blakely's, to put it bluntly, is a bastard to work with. It is very dense and hard, prone to tear-out, generates nasty fine dust, and there is a surprise in nearly every pass of the gouge. Fine cracks regularly appear, as do gum veins, and it turns out that the wood of this tree is as popular with a type of Witchetty Grub as its leaves are with Koalas. These little blighters (the grubs) chew extensive 5-10mm diameter tunnels through both sapwood and heartwood, which can make for some pretty "holy" bowls.
But I think the colour and figure of the finished product make it all worthwhile, as I hope you will agree from the example below. I have turned a number of these fruit bowls/dishes, and the rich red results of applying the tung-oil finish are always a joy. This wood also makes excellent tool handles and carvers' mallets.
Despite the cracking, the wood is otherwise sound, and after the cracks have been stabilized with thin CA, you can achieve quite thin walls. The inclusions are more of a problem - I tried filling them with epoxy mixed with sanding dust, but was not satisfied with the artificial-looking result, which can be seen in the enlargement below. I should have followed Richard Raffan's advice and used a black filler (such as ebony dust) which actually looks more natural. I have also seen brass dust used very effectively to simulate veins of "gold", but this can easily be overdone.
Comments are welcome, but my main purpose in posting was to share the experience of working with this very trying, but rewarding, native timber.
We were disappointed to find, however, that after a decent seasoning period, most of the slabs had cracked badly, and none had furniture potential. Even the turners found it difficult to cut usable blanks, but some of us persisted and recovered a few bowl/platter blanks, as well as spindle material.
Blakely's, to put it bluntly, is a bastard to work with. It is very dense and hard, prone to tear-out, generates nasty fine dust, and there is a surprise in nearly every pass of the gouge. Fine cracks regularly appear, as do gum veins, and it turns out that the wood of this tree is as popular with a type of Witchetty Grub as its leaves are with Koalas. These little blighters (the grubs) chew extensive 5-10mm diameter tunnels through both sapwood and heartwood, which can make for some pretty "holy" bowls.
But I think the colour and figure of the finished product make it all worthwhile, as I hope you will agree from the example below. I have turned a number of these fruit bowls/dishes, and the rich red results of applying the tung-oil finish are always a joy. This wood also makes excellent tool handles and carvers' mallets.
Despite the cracking, the wood is otherwise sound, and after the cracks have been stabilized with thin CA, you can achieve quite thin walls. The inclusions are more of a problem - I tried filling them with epoxy mixed with sanding dust, but was not satisfied with the artificial-looking result, which can be seen in the enlargement below. I should have followed Richard Raffan's advice and used a black filler (such as ebony dust) which actually looks more natural. I have also seen brass dust used very effectively to simulate veins of "gold", but this can easily be overdone.
Comments are welcome, but my main purpose in posting was to share the experience of working with this very trying, but rewarding, native timber.