Started turning this back at the end of March, and one of the cracks wanted to open up, so I mixed up some blue-tinted epoxy and filled the crack. And then caught Covid and wasn’t in the shop for 3 weeks.
Got back out there earlier this week, and finished turning the bowl, and ended up turning away almost all of the crack and blue epoxy, since it wasn’t a shape I was happy with. It’s fairly rare that I’ll turn a bowl and leave the pith in, but in this case I did.
And you can see a few spots where I left the blue. I think I like having just a teensy bit of epoxy visible.
I also got the Simple Woodturning Tools laser-guided hollowing system, which is pretty dang neat. I dialed it in for quarter-inch edges on this, and got pretty dang close to that. Lots simpler than stopping and measuring repeatedly, and a lot less nerve-wracking.
Steve, it’ll finish darker than walnut if a guy oils it. This was shellac-only for the first few coats, then just enough oil to keep the shellac from pulling after that.
Thanks, Pottz. Is it worth $350? Not sure. But I’m glad I have it, so I guess it is.
Thanks, gang! It’s pretty wood, but a real pain in the butt. Tons of checks from drying too fast (I was sick, so I didn’t get the ends painted as well as I should have) and it’s brittle enough that tools that aren’t razor sharp will cause tearout and chipping. I’m having better luck with freshly sharpened HSS than I am with carbide, but the carbide hollower gets me most of the way there for the inside.
I’m currently processing some logs into boards, too. I did a 7” diameter log 2’ long yesterday. Turned it into a dozen 3” wide by 1/2 inch thick boards that are mostly quartersawn. Got them stacked and stickered and waiting for them to finish drying out so I can know if I have to build a mold for epoxy-filling the cracks in them or not. I’d say about half of the boards will need some intervention if there’s no further cracking.
I’m doing most of my resawing on the table saw. Thinking I might need to buy the “laser kerf” 1/16” thick blade from infinity to cut down on the waste (and power draw that trips the breaker a couple times per board) as I’m ripping a slice off a 3” thick slab.
Ace job on this one Dave, the color is much darker then I ever get (oil). That's a nice chocolaty color and with the RO grain being what it is, looks like a great wood for showing off in 3D. 👍
Nathan, I’ve got a 10” bandsaw, which can only handle a 6-1/8 inch piece of wood, and the blade is getting dull so it ends up cutting jigsaw puzzles. With a 10” blade on the table saw, I can cut bigger pieces (halfway through from each side), and even with a 1/8 inch kerf, I end up wasting less, because the blade doesn’t deflect at every little knot. The only snag is that zeroing the blade tilt still has me at 86-87 degrees from the table, so my theoretically rectangular boards are parallelograms.
But again, it’s less waste than I get with the bandsaw until I get a new blade for it.
This wood is from Russian olives that are 40-50 foot tall, and most are over a foot diameter chest high. They’re growing in the bosque by La Cienega (just south of Santa Fe), and the guy owning that land wants to remove them all and get cottonwoods growing in there, as it natively was. But if you’re in / near NM and want a BUNCH of Russian olive, let me know and I’d be happy to hook you up. He’ll even drop the trees and help load your pickup.
There’s also a gihugic cottonwood. 4-5 foot diameter, and a straight trunk section 60-70 feet long, but it’s been down for four years. Doesn’t look too spalted, but I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a bunch of rot on the side I can’t see.
Those Rio Grande Cottonwoods are widow makers. Every one I have seen that has shed branches has the center heart wood rotted away. Might be good perimeter wood however.
Thanks, folks! I’m surprised that folks think Russian olive is lighter. All of it I’ve seen has been pretty dark heartwood, though the sapwood is light.
FYI, here are four boards I processed this morning. Three of them will need some sort of work (likely a masking tape and epoxy fill) before they’re usable in a box due to cracks in the wood. This log had two nasty ring-shakes all down the length of it. The next log from the tree also had a twist of about 50 degrees through a two-foot length, which made splitting it so I could process it into bowl blanks interesting.
It’s pretty wood though, and I hope it will be worth all the headaches.
