Start to finish

Palo Verde burl I picked up about 6 weeks ago. I pulled this out of a local firewood pile. I don't normally use Palo Verde but I can't pass up a burl.












I roughed it out Sunday morning. It's still about 3/4" thick and quite heavy, both because of the thickness and the water content.











There's some significant spalting and a few bug holes. I came across several live grubs while turning. They were likely Palo Verde beetle larvae and those that didn't get decapitated during the turning process probably died when I ran it through the microwave.









This piece is actually fairly large, roughly 10" diameter and 8" tall. Now it will sit on a shelf for 6 months or more. I'll check on it in a couple of weeks. If its drying fast I may try to get it done in time for my next show, almost exactly a month away.









Tonight I put another chunk of California Pepper on the lathe. I had already rounded it to a cylinder a couple weeks ago.











It only took five minutes to get the outside shaped and the tenon formed. After putting it in a chick I drilled a pilot hole to the finished depth and started hollowing.











After hollowing I reversed it and jam chucked it to finish the bottom. Total Tim elapsed was just a hair over 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure with a bit more practice and if I pushed myself I could get it down to 30 minutes.

It's now gone through a couple of microwave cycles and will dry overnight. I expect significant warping.

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Warped and twisted

 The first 3 pieces from my California Pepper haul.  This piece is a calabash style bowl turned end grain less than 1/8" thick and allowed to warp.  Roughly 6" X 7"

 Another end grain piece.  Also roughly 1/8" thick and allowed to warp.  Roughly 6" X 5"

This one was turned side grain, it was left a little thicker, but still under 1/4".  Roughly 6" X 6".

Work in progress

About 10 days ago I got ahold of a bunch of wood that I later identified as California Pepper.  I finally got a chance to do some turning yesterday and these 2 hollow forms are the result.  Both were turned green to finish, something I don't normally do.  I thought these might warp as I had some warping issues with some California Pepper I turned 5 or 6 years ago.  In this photo both pieces have been off the lathe for an hour or so and have been put through 3 microwave cycles (45 seconds on high each time).  They've been wetted to approximate how they'll look when finished.

This is how they look today after being left out to dry overnight.  Major warpage, slightly more than I expected but that's not really all that surprising.  Now I have another issue, I didn't do much sanding because the wood was still green.  Now that it's so severely warped I can't do very much sanding.  So I'm considering investing in some sandblasting equipment.  Anybody have any experience with sandblasting wood?

Madrone Burl

As I promised Christian I got the first piece of the Madrone Burl he left me on the lathe today.  The color in the wood is amazing, fresh cut it was bright red with some brown patches.

I turned it as thin as I could, probably too thin in a couple of spots.  The wood cut very well, requiring almost no sanding.  I might have found a new favorite wood except it's pretty much impossible to get around here.

After turning was completed I popped it in the microwave for 60 seconds a couple of times to start to dry it and to force it to warp. 

We'll see how much more it moves over the next 24 hours.