I turn anything. If I think I can get something from a piece of wood on the lathe it goes. At times it works, sometimes not. Cracked, part rotten, shake, whatever. Is this considered wrong? A friend mentioned that maybe I should be more selective but I don`t know, what do ye think?
Turn it or bin it?
Nov 01, 2007
6 Replies
If you are having fun and learning from it, why stop?
Of course you should be more selective. That way you will miss the opportunity to explore woods that some others may never have even considered only to find that it is something special. Your skills at working with these less selective pieces will only have to improve to work with less than perfect wood that may even carry over to those nice pieces of wood that you paid several hundred dollars for. Yes, be much more selective and turn everything that comes into your hand and have fun.
brian
Some of my best pieces have come from wood that I came close to burning. You never know when you are going to be nicely surprised. Sometimes rotten, gnarly, knotty, cracked, or bug infested is just another word for character. Some of my most expensive pieces are from this group. Some people love that kind of stuff. You never know for sure until you turn it, sand it and finish it how its going to turn out. If you do enough of this kind of thing then you will learn to anticipate potential character.
Ted
Everyone is different, that's what makes it interesting..
For years, I thought you had to buy kiln dried blanks to turn stuff... Then I tried firewood and never went back..
Cracked? Pithy? knots? that's character... and what folks like to buy..
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
I thought I was right. Thanks for the replies.
Boru
Slack Linux #328989
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Simple pleasures in life are getting harder to find so whatever turns (you on).
Wayne
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