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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.

Enfield Guy
25th August 2009, 07:58 PM
:2tsup:

specialist
25th August 2009, 08:02 PM
nice

orificiam
25th August 2009, 09:33 PM
A beautiful plater Tornatus and the colour --Wow-:oo:
Cheers Tony.:)

Ozkaban
26th August 2009, 11:50 AM
That's a very interesting bit of timber Tornatus. Definitely worth the effort of dealing with the grain/holes, etc.

Cheers,
Dave

Ed Reiss
26th August 2009, 12:04 PM
...ain't nature wonderful to supply us with a gorgeous wood like that :U

artme
29th August 2009, 06:14 AM
:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup: Super grain pattern.

Sawdust Maker
29th August 2009, 09:37 AM
I like it immensely :2tsup: extremely nice piece of timber
have you tried the coffee and epoxy mix in the inclusions?

Tornatus
29th August 2009, 04:25 PM
I like it immensely :2tsup: extremely nice piece of timber
have you tried the coffee and epoxy mix in the inclusions?

Thanks, everybody, for your comments.

Nick - no, I haven't tried the coffee grounds trick, mainly because I'm too cheap and only use coffee bags! I understand it works well, though, so I must raid Starbucks and obtain one of their free bags of grounds.

Wary of being accused of name-dropping, I will also note that someone only to be identified by the initials RR has given me a small bag of fine shavings and dust from some of his ebony turnings, and I will try the "all-black" solution for inclusions that he recommends.

tea lady
29th August 2009, 07:49 PM
Pretty scecky looking platter. You sure you haven't turned up the colour? Or is the blue background making it look even redder? :cool:

Tornatus
29th August 2009, 08:16 PM
Pretty scecky looking platter. You sure you haven't turned up the colour? Or is the blue background making it look even redder? :cool:

Thanks, TL - I think (not sure what "scecky" means....is that a deep southern expression?)

While the blue background certainly shows this dish's colour off nicely, the photo is a pretty accurate reproduction of the richness and intensity of this species of redgum. It looks good enough when you are working it dry, but once you put the oil on (in this case, some of my dwindling supply of Organoil Hi-speed Turning Oil) the colour really leaps out at you. I turned my first fruit bowl of this type for my wife, and when she showed it to the other women of our neighbourhood (aka "The Coven"), I suddenly found myself turning several more - and it was the colour that they admired most. :B