Madrone burl

Agreed on everything you said about Madrone, Jim. I've turned it a few times - IMO, not nearly enough to satisfy me tho. I took a workshop with Christian B last fall. The two "basket" pieces I made were placed on a shelf in our family room to dry/distort/wrinkle/etc. -- One could actually hear the pieces drying - sounded like my daughter had left a freshly poured bowl of Rice Krispies on the shelf - no cracks though, as the pieces were on the order of 1/16" to 3/32" thick. Fun stuff but a different animal than most other woods.

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

Here's another approach that may help a bit....

Instead of turning the outside and then turning the inside, which I think puts undue stress on the walls while turning the inside, think about this....

Turn the inside first, then the outside! I used to blow up a bunch of bowls and hollow forms, then started turning what many people would call inside out... I turn the inside first, while the walls are very thick. Then I turn the outside to match the inside shape, even to really thin walls. Notice that when you are turning the outside, you are pressing inward, against the effect of centrifugal force, while when you turn "conventionally" you put additional stress with the tools by ADDING to the effect of centrifugal force, thereby asking for a blowup! Of course, you want to slow down the lathe as the walls get thinner, so as to not throw bits of the object all over the shop... By switching to the inside-to-outside method, I haven't had a blowup in over two years. Before that, it was a regular occurrence....

Just something else to consider....

Thanks

--Rick

Jim Gott wrote:

Keith, What do you mean by "Blow Up"? My method of turning Madrone is to keep it wet. I just bought a 60# chunk of "Bright Red Wormy Madrone" and had it well waxed. I'm keeping it in a big plastic bag with a couple cups of water thrown in for extra moisture.

While I'm turning it I spray water on it from time to time when the surrace begins to look dry. Turn the walls thin. Then let them dry and watch them twist and warp into all sorts of odd shapes. Drying can either be air drying or in a microwave - about 30-seconds every

This is a method that Christian Burchard demonstrated in a workshop last year.

I will have pix on the weblog soon, but I'm heading out of town in a couple days so they will go on sometime in a week or so.

mike

Now that's thinking outside the bowl. Somehow that had never occurred to me. I'll have to try it.

Rick Frazier wrote:

Hi guys, thanks for all the responses. What has been happening is that the burls are checking extremly fast. Like before they even get home. I wrapped one in plastic a couple of days ago to see if that would stop the blowing up process.

We obviously have been handling them wrong. I am glad we quit cutting them until we could figure out what to do with them. We have been treating them like most of the other burls we have collected. The wood is gorgeous but it sure ain't much use when it blows up, man it is like a jigsaw puzzle, millions of pieces.

Anyway, again mutcho thank yous.

=keith=

I know it's bad manners to follow up to my own postings, but ...

I have updated the TWR site.