Endgrain turning help

Your dry wood is just going to be more dust than shavings especially because you mentioned turning the endgrain. I'm assuming that "use for end grain" means you're going to be hollowing to some degree and you have a chuck of some sort to hold your work at only one end.

For working endgrain in a hollowing fashion, you generally want to start out by using a small square ended (rounded is fine too) scraper and working from the center outward. You can, of course, use a shallow fluted gouge (commonly referred to as a spindle gouge) but it's a bit more advanced to use as are the specialized hollowing tools.

- Andrew

Matt

You are better off cutting down a new willow tree - this stuff will crack and run and you will waste a few hours, get friustrated, dull your tools, have to resharpen them a few times, get sore hands, breathe some dust and probably end up with a substandard result on the final piece.

If it were me, I would use the chunk of wood for some small boxes, making sure I cut the work pieces along any major checks that exist in the wood.

Good luck with this if you plan to move forward.

Ray

If you have it mounted properly, you still follow the two basic rules of turning - down grain and down hill. For your hollowing, you might want to establish something near the depth you will want by boring a centered hole. Then you can cut from the hole toward the rim, tapering outward, thereby cutting both down hill and down grain. I use gouges, others use scrapers. I keep the edges back on my non-forged spindle gouges, which allows me to reach in and shave. On a couple of cheap gouges, I have the grind farther back than the diameter of the gouge, allowing me to set the side of the gouge against the side of the work to be hollowed, then rotate it counterclockwise to start shaving. If you do much endgrain hollowing, this "pointy" grind is a great one to have. I've been turning Christmas ornaments of late, and it takes the bulk of the interior out quickly, since the shavings run down the gouge, making plenty of room for the hollowing scraper, which does not eject its shavings.

Willow of several sorts is _really_ fuzzy, but it's pretty much bulletproof as far as additional checking goes.

Check links on my website

Was late last night when I replied to your post, and did not really give you all the info. Go to

Good advice from all, however, if I might suggest a slightly different approach. I would soak the willow piece in LDD and use my Termite ring tool for the hollowing. See it at: