Thread: Help with Camphor

Camphor Laurel is a great timber to turn, slab or anything else you might want to make out of it. Its a stable timber, drys well with minimal cracking and distortion, readily machined and takes most finishes very well.

I have turned a fair bit of it and the heart timber of most old trees has amazing colour. Cut it up by removing the pith and seal the end grain with whatever you have. I have used melted styrofoam, paint, spray on varnish, all work well.

The smell cant be a bit overpowering after awhile, so I turn it in fits and starts. Dry turning it can be dusty and some folks have a hard time with Camphor dust. But I am fine with it, blowing it away from me with a fan.

A word of caution the quality of the figure does change greatly from area to area and some I have seen is just firewood. But around Sydney here it produce great figure and often very reds with very rich browns.

See the pic, this is a good example of what to expect.

That is an amazing piece to say the least

Cut it up by removing the pith - I don't understand what that means

I'd also like some advice on the best way to take the remainder of the tree down, i'm starting to think the base is out of the question, without a mobile miller, how on earth do people get the slabs out? I was told had to cut down the timber, not across??

Cut it up by removing the pith - I don't understand what that means

check the image below it should clear things up.


Looking at the flickr image I would cut the trunks one at a time,probably around chest height to start with, the cut the rest off flush with the ground.

Slice the logs down through the centre, right through the pith. By the look of it the logs wont be much good for slabbing as they look a bit small on diameter.

Having sliced them up, assuming your going to turn them, cut them into shorter lengths, say 1.5 time the diameter and seal the end grain. In fact seal all the cut areas, leaving the bark on.

Do you still have any timber left,
I would be interested in some.

Jeff
vk4

of course, you are welcome to come and take some for free, like i said, happy to see it go to good use

at same time, help me take a couple of pieces as well

anyone that wants any of this tree, please just let me know, my number is in my introduction

Originally Posted by hughie

check the image below it should clear things up.


Looking at the flickr image I would cut the trunks one at a time,probably around chest height to start with, the cut the rest off flush with the ground.

Slice the logs down through the centre, right through the pith. By the look of it the logs wont be much good for slabbing as they look a bit small on diameter.

Having sliced them up, assuming your going to turn them, cut them into shorter lengths, say 1.5 time the diameter and seal the end grain. In fact seal all the cut areas, leaving the bark on.

thank you for this information, it makes more sense to me now.