Yesterday a friend was cleaning up a fence row and I grabbed a 10 inch sassafras tree and cut 32 bowl blanks from it and sealed the ends. I counted 52 growth rings. The wood is light, even when wet and reminds me of catalpa although a little heavier.
This morning I roughed out 5 bowls in an hour and 15 minutes. This included measuring, bandsawing, mounting, changing chucks and tool rests out. During this time I also emptied the shavings collector and cleaned out the hose several times and sharpened the gouges. Once the blank is balanced you can really hog out the wood and it smells like spicy soap.
I love green wood turning except getting up the mountain of shavings.