Turning chunks of wood into a nice bowl, plate or other hollow form is typically a crap shoot. What is beneath the surface of the starting point is often only discovered as the piece is turned. But what if you had more info about what's inside?
Did some of that "visualizing what's inside" work on my current piece - black walnut - thick bark still on it. Have posted that to alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking
charlie b
A lot of the mystery fades after the first thousand turnings. The first hundred cords of wood you split and stack teaches you a lot about interpreting the bark and branches, which also cuts down on the number of pieces fulfilling their ultimate destiny as heat rather than filling your pocket.
You can't change the size or composition of a piece, only its shape and orientation. Some pieces are extremely high failure rate propositions, so you do them only when the shelves are full of sellers. Did one between "standard" bowls of outstandingly figured wood yesterday, probably taking longer than the preceding two roughs on it, and it just didn't look like what I wanted as I approached final. It gets one more look this afternoon, and if it hasn't shaped up, it'll sizzle and singe tonight. All the planning and effort in the world won't save a bad piece of wood or overcome a bad design choice.
Fortunately the materials grow on trees, and I have pallets of possibilities out there. Never be afraid to throw something into the fire and move on. Life's to short to turn crap.
Fortunately, I don't need to sell anything. I do go for the biggest piece possible in a blank, though going for the best piece in a blank is what I'm aspiring to.
No fireplace - the SF Bay Area doesn't get cold enough often enough to make a fireplace worth the effort. And being a valley, Silly Cone Valley specifically, a bunch of wood burning in a bunch of fireplaces doesn't make the air that pleasant to breath. Bad enough during the summer.
At some point, I hope to be more selective in what I turn. But for now, if it can be turned I'll try it. And once I start turning something it'll stay on the lathe til I get something or there's nothing left to turn. OK so if it's green and splits I'll throw it away. But short of that it's keep turning til you find "it" or it's all gone.
Good point.
To paraphrase All the ideology and spin won't save a bad war or overcome a very stupid executive decision to start that war , with or without sufficient troops on the ground.
Up to now just the turning is fun. At some point I'll become more discerning. Eventually I may even get to the point where I can throw away a piece of wood, of whatever size or shape, which could, at some point in the future, be used - for something (other than firewood or land fill)
Wodoworking sure is fun!
charlie b
Hi Charlie
Crap shoot ? So what's the verdict ??
I had a look at the pic's, but any pic' and even more so on ABPW they don't tell the whole story. On this particulate piece of wood, there's not much that should be of any worry to you, the splits on the pith side very probably are turned away when going in from the pith side, and the small twig knots,( as what I think they are, going by what the pic' shows) on the outside might be just on the outer layer of the blank and if not they are small enough to add interest but not big enough so that they would tear the wood apart, all this just MO.
No guaranties as one never knows what else there might be in there, but for what I see, no big surprises.
Crap shoot, No not really.
Most always, one can tell if there are some probable problems in store or possible, just by looking, but like a lot of things, experience does help in getting X-ray vision so to speak, the bark hides a lot, but also reveals in it's way of growing, and it all ads up to what really (for me at least) makes turning such an interesting hobby, there's always that infinite of variations in the wood, I just love it.
Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo
charlie b wrote:
Welllllll - I went with the max diameter, which put the pith side center right in the middle of the Knot with the soft pith and the splits radiating out from it. As suspected, that knot ran at an angle and was gone before I got to the inside bottom of the bowl.
The higher resolution pictures provided a bit more info. Scaled everything down and compressed quite a bit to get the file size down. What I was trying to show was a method to better understand what is probably below the surface in order to a) avoid wasting time on a chunk of wood that, in fact, holds little promise OR a chunk of wood which, at first glance, looks like a Tosser but may be a diamond in the rough and b) better plan where to place the centers to avoid problems and get the best out of a blank.
That's pretty much how things turned out. The potential problem knot was angled enough to not make it to the bottom of the inside of the bowl. BUT it did leave lighter grain in the middle of darker wood in the bottom of the bowl.
There were clusters of twig knots which don't detract - nor add - much to the piece.
Snip
Experience takes time. Focused expeience takes a little less time. By paying attention to the relationship between what?s on the inside and outside of the raw candidate blank I?m going at it a little more methodically. Would be interesting to CAT Scan candidates.
That?s why I do it and how I try to do it. So far I?m leaving the shop with all the body parts and most of the blood I entered with.
charlie b
ps - posted pic of finished bowl from the ?dissected candidate?
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