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Barry Hicks
28th July 2007, 04:24 PM
I was turning a green she oak bowl blank and noticed a small shiny patch and after a little digging with screw driver, unearthed a lead .22 cal. bullet.
I have to tell you that lead turns very well!
What surprises have you found in timber?

Barry Hicks

Caveman
28th July 2007, 05:22 PM
Nails!!!!!
Was rough turning a green grevillia robusta bowl - lurking under the bark was several nails - interestingly when I hit them with the bowl gouge it didn't do too much damage to the gouge - mind you not so surprising when one considers the cr@p quality of our nails over here.

Would be nice to have a metal detector to run over the wood before hand. My chainsaw has also had a run in with a few nails before - not much fun.

DJ’s Timber
28th July 2007, 05:47 PM
I've found heavy copper cable with the chainsaw, but the problem was that bloody heavy gauge gal staples holding the copper cable. The copper turned and polished up a treat :2tsup:

Stu in Tokyo
28th July 2007, 06:06 PM
Nails and staples, I found them all with my Wizard II metal detector. I dug them out, and they did leave a neat stain in the wood.

Cheers!

soundman
28th July 2007, 08:48 PM
Aparantly wood turning features of "military origin" are a common occurance in europe. You get that when you host a war.
I've also heard of similar in the states due to the popularity of hunting.

I haerd of a bloke who found a pocket watch with his chainsaw.

cheers

DavidG
28th July 2007, 10:07 PM
Found a chunk of quartz rock in the crotch of a tree, with the chain saw.:o
Nails when turning.

Skew ChiDAMN!!
28th July 2007, 11:17 PM
Ya know, I've been lucky? I don't think I've ever really hit metal of any sort... near misses, yeah, but they were just "oh bother" moments of little memorable value.

However, I've always had this absolutely fanbloodytastic knack at using a chainsaw to locate any trees with stones embedded in them somewhere. :~

And whenever I try to turn a green piece of timber it's almost guaranteed that my facemask will, usually at the worst possible moment, indicate the presence of big, juicy grubs by the simple expedient of suddenly requiring a windshield wiper. :roll:

soundman
29th July 2007, 12:12 AM
Oh yess the old quartz in the crutch syndrome.... wrecked a bandsaw blade that way.:~

cheers

BANNED
29th July 2007, 01:28 AM
Hi everyone,
I reckon, I've damaged a large number of tools due to UFOs in timber. Probably the worse ones have happen with a electric planner, normally just after a put a new set of blades, damn...!!!!
I just though about a tree (gum), I've seen some time ago, and most certainly a good example of how strange things grow in/with trees. I wouldn't like to have found it with a chainsaw, or process the blank if I did got it somewhere with the intention of turning it.
Cheers
GV

La truciolara
29th July 2007, 02:08 AM
...

I haerd of a bloke who found a pocket watch with his chainsaw.

cheersAnd still working? :U

Manuka Jock
29th July 2007, 08:37 AM
I cut along the length of a coach bolt with my chainsaw mill once . Not that I knew what had happened till I had finished the cut.
All I did know was , that the bar was twisting , and forward was the only way out
The slab above the bar was 100mm thick and 600mm wide , and I had about half way to go ( 2.5M) . The bolt had killed the teeth on the bottom side of the chain , so as I carried on cutting , the saw scribed an arc upwards to , until it came out at the far end , just below the slab top.
One brand new chain totally buggered :((

scooter
29th July 2007, 11:45 PM
Found the screw chuck in the bottom of a few pieces before... :D

Not the SN2...........yet.... /fingers crossed/

rat52
30th July 2007, 12:58 PM
Being of the "tight" type of person and using all the 2nd hand timber I can. The best investment I ever mad was the metal detector. It even picks up the broken leg of a staple.

Can't do anything about rocks in crotches yet. Maybe a portable xray machine:D

rsser
30th July 2007, 01:30 PM
Nail punch deeply embedded in a log ... wrecked two bandsaw blades. (Dumb and dumber).

Yep, I now use a security guard type metal detector. Can be a slow process but it will pick up items down to the size of a panel pin.

ticklingmedusa
30th July 2007, 02:19 PM
Just last week I found the tiny tubular shell of an unidentified marine organism (probably a tube worm Polychaete)
while roughing a blank of Sea Hibiscus from Indonesia. It didn't really
do any damage just crunched with contact to the Sorby.
I was puzzled so I googled it and learned that Sea Hibiscus grows near Mangroves. There are some spalted and unsound spots where the worm
or perhaps something else bored in a little.
I decided to put it on the shelf for a while and maybe stabilize the spots with CA or something before proceeding.
Its something Ive never turned before... pretty unusual here.
I think barbed wire would be nasty, theres lots of it strung out here in the western cattle country (US) between oaks.
Interesting question Barry.
tm

rsser
30th July 2007, 04:10 PM
Interesting question ... what can you turn?

... from other folks' posts: brass, aluminium, stone (alabaster at least), various polymers, mild steel, bone and horn presumably, over in bed ... ;-}

Profit .. prone to disappoint if attempted by mere mortals.

What else?
.

Gra
30th July 2007, 04:24 PM
Found the screw chuck in the bottom of a few pieces before... :D

Not the SN2...........yet.... /fingers crossed/

I have....:C:~ I now have a beautiful Houn pine bowl, with a hole in the bottom....... going to have to turn a piece of blackwood to compliment it one day

Hardenfast
30th July 2007, 05:24 PM
A few years back I encountered a half inch steel nut (as in nut & bolt) in the midlle of a sheet of 16mm Melamine while running it through the Altendorf. It went off with a bang and a few sparks and shelled out the bottom of the sheet in a 70mm round breakout. I had to go sifting through the dust chute in the motor cabinet to find out what had happened.

The Altendorf had gone quite well and had sliced half way through the nut before blasting it out of the sheet, but it had broken 6 tungsten teeth off the $300 blade and shattered the table infill around the blade in the process. I have since discovered that all sorts of things tended to make their way into pyneboard sheets before screening processes were improved. Unfortunately I didn't keep any evidence to present to the manufacturer of the board for a compensation claim.

You normally wouldn't expect any need to run the metal detector over a sheet of melamine, so it wouldn't have helped in this case.

Wayne

rsser
30th July 2007, 06:25 PM
Yep Gra ... got a nice English Ash bowl ... bit windy at the bottom though ;-} Qtn is what wood would match ... grain, expansion and contraction etc.

Ditto Wayne: cut through a bit of salvage timber with a cheap mitre saw, for kindling. TCT blade went right through a nail, lengthways (LOL).

echnidna
30th July 2007, 06:58 PM
found a fullsize ingrown pine cone in a lump of radiata years ago.

Cliff Rogers
30th July 2007, 11:36 PM
I have found some really nice bowls inside some of my blanks. :wink: :D

bennylaird
30th July 2007, 11:38 PM
There were some really nice ones in the blanks Cliff how come you found the ratty ones??????????

wheelinround
31st July 2007, 10:30 AM
I was turning a green she oak bowl blank and noticed a small shiny patch and after a little digging with screw driver, unearthed a lead .22 cal. bullet.
I have to tell you that lead turns very well!
What surprises have you found in timber?

Barry Hicks

:rolleyes: tree wasnt from Hawks Nest way was it

another train of thought could be the missing clue to a crime

Barry Hicks
31st July 2007, 11:25 AM
G'day Wheelinaround. Don't know where Hawks Nest is but I got the log from the Sunshine Coast hinterland so the tree probably lived its life somewhere close by.

Barry Hicks