Scratching the surface

This is one of the other pieces I purchased Sunday night. It had several bark inclusions which I broke loose before starting.










I had high hopes that the black coloring was more than just superficial. To that end I planned to turn a hollow form in this orientation, with the black color and the voids on the top.










This is what I planned to be the bottom. The piece started at 9" diameter and 4.5" thick. I was told it is elm but I now suspect it's maple.









This is a section of the Birdseye Maple veneer boule. Even in a dirty and rough state the intense Birdseye figure is clearly visible.
















And here's the crack running down the side. It's unfortunate that this defect is present but that's what happens when green wood dries too fast.














On the end you can see where the drive centers from the veneer lathe gripped the log as the veneer was being cut. I normally use a 1" diameter drive center. The veneer lathe used one at least 6" diameter.
















The remainder of the veneer boule. 6" diameter and just under 6' long.
















I roughed out the outside of both pieces and then started hollowing with a small scraper. The piece on the right is the piece I hoped would have all the black coloring. That coloring ended up being only on the surface. After seeing the coloring and the spalting patterns I decided to flip the orientation of the blank.








The large void will now be on the bottom and the the lighter color and bug holes on the top.











Profile view of both pieces. I was afraid that I would be disappointed with the blank without the black coloring. In some ways I think that this coloring is better.











Close up view of the Birdseye figure. This stuff is very intense, I can't wait to get it finished.

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Vacation haul

I'm back after a 3 week vacation to Idaho to visit family and to go on a 5 day white water rafting trip.  Along the way I picked up wood whenever possible.  This stack was sourced from Mike Mahoney and includes curly Ash, curly Maple, Maple burl, red Box Elder, and quilted Mormon Poplar.  All of this came from Mike's personal stash.  I also got a tour of Mike's operation - from his shop, to his drying room, on to his shipping room, and a small tour of his home and a quick look at his turning collection.  I don't think I've ever met a nicer person than Mike and he's a fantastic turning to boot.

While in Idaho I visited a couple of turners, Brian Brown in Idaho Falls and Dick Anderson in Pocatello.  I met Dick briefly at the 2011 Desert Woodturning Roundup and I met Brian a couple of years ago when he was in town on business.  With Dick I swapped some Mesquite for some Madrone Burl, Russian Olive, and a piece of Mountain Mahogany.  Brian and I traded some Mesquite, African Sumac, Desert Ironwood, and Olive for Russian Olive, Osage Orange, and Box Elder Burl.

My biggest haul on the vacation though was some Mountain Mahogany I managed to get near the end.  I thought I could get some in the 6" diameter range and hoped to find some between 8-10" diameter.  The biggest piece is approx 12" x 14" on the butt end.  It's also extremely heavy, similar to Desert Ironwood.  When dry it will not float in water, one of only a handful of woods with this property.

Bisecting the burl

I'm not quite sure why but I decided it was time to cut up my burl today.  I tried for quite a while to find a sawmill to cut it up and minimize the waste but ended up deciding to bite the bullet and tackle it myself.

Step 1 was to wrap a rope around the burl and pull it out of the garage and into my driveway with my SUV.  Step 2 loop the rope around the top so the burl is tipped onto one of the already flat sides.  Step 3 fire up the chainsaw.








I had to cut from both sides to make the cut.  My chainsaw has a 20" bar and the burl is 36-38" wide leaving very little overlap in the middle.  The cuts didn't line up perfectly but it wasn't too bad.















I ended up cutting into 8 pieces, each roughly (very roughly) 18" cubed.  Each piece averages 95 pounds making the whole burl about 780 pounds.  Out of curiosity we weighed the sawdust and after subtracting the weight of the trashcan found that we had 33 pounds of shavings.

Here's a close up shot of some of the burl figure.  I'm very happy with the piece.  It's got very nice figure and color.  There are some bark inclusions but nothing that should be a deal breaker.

Ironwood blanks

A couple more Desert Ironwood handle blanks today.  I don't have an intended purpose for these yet, eventually I'll probably get a couple new tools and depending on the manufacturer they may need handles.

These are a little shorter than the one I turned yesterday due to a defect in the log, these are about 13" long, yesterday's was 15".  The stock handle that I broke on Thursday night was 12 1/2".  The additional length and the additional weight should provide better tool control.  The original handle was Ash and had a specific gravity of .66 Mesquite has a specific gravity of .80, Desert Ironwood is 1.15.  I suspect that with the additional length and the much denser wood the tool is about 50% heavier now.