Thread: A few more bits and pieces from my latest travels

I just got back from my trip down to Melb for the Phillip Island Turnabout and have started unpacking. I wanted to get mainly Acacias and Coolabah from way out west on my way back, but the trip didn't pan out as planned due to high heat out west, plus continued old and new injuries limiting what I could do.

First off was my passenger on the front seat, a red bottlebrush branch from a riverbank in NW NSW. It is from the largest bottlebrush tree I have ever seen. The original tree had been pushed over in a flood but then regrew near the old stump and started again down further. This process has obviously continued over a long time as the tree, its saplings and regrowth was now spread over 500m of bank. The original trunk was now 1.2m dia , I didn't even know they grew that big. I'm not about to chop down any tree, especially one that old, but when the local farmer asked me to trim a branch or two from his favourite fishing spot, who am I to argue . The ~300mm branch and top fork were quickly cut and placed on the front seat .

I ended up cutting the fork in half and just sealing the ends for bowl blanks on site as it was too heavy to left. The colour has been stained by the sealer, including the feather grain, but it will turn off. I only sealed the ends of the straight section of branch on site and now have cut on the bandsaw into some 80mm sq for pepper grinder blanks, some 150x60 for boxes(?) (wet for photo) and some pen blanks/slabs as usual.

red bottlebrush blanks.jpgred bottlebrush bowl blanks.jpg

First out of the trailer was 2 branch pieces of Coolabah I scored from Pilliga NSW. They are from an old dead branch ~400mm dia but unfortunately were hollow from the white ants so didn't keep anymore. The remaining timber was 50-80mm thick and using the bandsaw I managed to get some great turning/knife scale/casting blanks. Plenty of lovely feather and fiddle grain in it, but I didn't want to wet it as I will probably cast some tomorrow into pepper grinder blanks. Just to give you an idea here is a couple of knife scales wet down for photo but eventually will be cast & stabilised.

Coolabah knife blanks.jpg

I marked another Coolibah tree with a 1m burl for picking up on the next trip when the shoulders are hopefully better (and I don't break more toes like this trip).

That's enough for today but next to come out of the trailer will be the Inland Cypress I also got from Pilliga. Then the remainder of the Olive from the Sydney tree, see https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ighlight=olive, but only 2/3 left after cutting it into turning blanks selling it whilst in Melb. Last will be some Elm burl I scored from the footpath down in Melb. More photos to come.