A couple of weeks ago, a sculptor at an art show gave me a 3 foot chunk of ironwood burl.. Really cool wood, but it was pretty broken up and tends to fragment on the lathe.. I did get 5 or 6 small pieces turned from it and 4 pens..
I made him a cigar pen from the scraps, (the Mexican guys love those macho ones), and he was very happy with it..
Then, he told me that he'd been working with ironwood again and had saved a piece for me... I'm thinking scraps for pens, right?
He gave me a 3' section of trunk, split down the middle like I was making bowl blanks... about 16" wide and 4 to 7" thick!.
He's been borrowing my mini lathe and if a few of the pieces I've made from his wood sell, I think he's going to get the lathe for a present..
mac
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