Spotted Gum

[warmtone]

Hi All, Quick Quuestion: Is spotted Gum any good for turning?

My neighbour has carried out some significant pruning with some nice 12" dia limbs on the nature strip!

B

[DJ’s Timber]

Think I have turned some for a tool handle once, can't really remember but a lot of hammer, picks and so on handles are turned from spotty so should be good

[NGX]

Hi All, Quick Quuestion: Is spotted Gum any good for turning?

My neighbour has carried out some significant pruning with some nice 12" dia limbs on the nature strip!

B

Hi I am sure its use is for, joinery and fencing; fine and outdoor furniture, parquetry and wood turning here.

I have made some things from this timber I find its best used for bottoms of my boxs, I plan on doing some dovetail inlays light and dark colours.

Grab some and mill it up ;) cheers..

[BobL]

This may be useful to you:
From: http://www.fpc.wa.gov.au/content/species/plantations/spotted_gum.asp

"Uses: The uses are as heavy engineering construction and mining timbers, where shock resistance is important, house framing, flooring, tool handles, piles and poles, shipbuilding, agricultural machinery and plywood."

and

"Workability:
The timber is not difficult to work. Unseasoned wood is somewhat corrosive to aluminium nails and screws, and the high extractives content can be a problem when gluing phenolic-type adhesives. For good bonding a pressure of about 1000 kPa and temperatures above 200 C are usually needed. A low moisture content, preferably between 8 and 10 per cent, is also desirable"

[texx]

we used to have a guy here called bert craig , he has passed away now but he was wheelright and he used a lot of spotted gum .
i would hang around his workshop a bit years ago and was allways quizzing him on timbers and stuff .
he used spotted gum as wheel spokes and also the shafts for horse drawn buggies , sulkies and so on because it was storng for it weight stood up to some weather and it was naturally springy and didnt get brittle with age .
used for whip handles too

[rsser]

The stuff I've played with was dense, a little oily and with a good deal of interlocked grain.

So it's worth a go but you'll prob need to vary your tool presentation.

Let us know how you go.

[Frank&Earnest]

Never had the pleasure of meeting it, but an interesting thing I can see from the data is that is a very good match for olive wood both as specific gravity and hardness. If it is not splintery should be excellent for mallets then.

On second thoughts: maybe there is some in the 1/2 tonne of "mystery rejects" I bought thanks to Studley, but because I have not found anybody yet to tell me which is which, I did not lie: we have not been formally introduced yet...:D

[rsser]

Yeah, mallet head is one of the things I did with it. It's darkish grey/brown, open and curly grained - fairly easy to id.

Darksiders like to test their plane blade angles on it cos of the cranky grain.