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Am I crazy?

F

figuredwoods

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May 9, 2005
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I tried all of what the moderator said to do and I cannot find upload photos anywhere. Please, Please tell me how to do it. There is no upload button on any of the pages I found. I've spent 45 minutes poking around and I am losing it. Plus I don't see where you click to subscribe to a thread or post.
I found the manage attachments, but the picture doesn't show up in the preview. Does it go to the gallery? This is very confusing for a novice like me. HELP!!!!!!!!
Figuredwoods 😱
PS. Well, the picture rendered, so I may as well ask if anyone knows if this is cuban mahogany. Is it? I got it as a freebie, when I bought an old lathe. It is 8/4 X 11" wide, by around 3 feet long. Any ideas as to its identity? I hope it isn't just sapele. It is an amazingly shiny bronze/copper color. This is a piece I cut from the end because there were end checks. It is incredibly old and surprisingly light. Maybe too dry. What do you all think? I don't want to cut into it anymore, until I figure out what it is and what I'm going to do with it. The close up shows how shiny it is, but there isn't really quite that much red in it.
 

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cuban mahogany

The Cuban Mahogany I turned had a lighter color which was more of a brown color that appears in most black walnuts (not identical, but somewhat a walnut color). It also had some sap on it that was very light. It had come from the south Florida area.

The wood you are showing looks like some Honduras Mahogany I turned some a while back and it looks identical.
 
Not Cuban Mahogany

I hate to say this, but I was cleaning up my shop (finally!) and was moving a bunch of drying cherry when I noticed the shimmering rays in one piece of the wood. It hit me right then that I have never seen cherry, which of course darkens with age, that was as old as this stuff was. I looked closely at it and found a cherry blank from the same guy and low and behold---it matched. Drat!!! :mad: Anyway thanks for your responses. I know I got some great wood in that pile, but I am used to exotics and don't know butternut or white oak. Plus most of this stuff is 20- to 60 years old. I might be open to selling or trading some of it, as there is a ton. I guess I got about 60 boardfeet of 8/8 and some 4/4 platter blanks. I bought the lathe I got this free wood with so that I can go to the next level of turning, ---bowls. I can't wait. I'm gonna need you guys for some basic info on getting started. I got some turned bowls with the load that had paper on the bottoms, instead of screwing the blanks to the plate (named?). I have sooooo much to learn. Thanks for reading this, I can't wait to hear from you all.
 
Cherry is good!

figuredwoods said:
I hate to say this, but I was cleaning up my shop (finally!) and was moving a bunch of drying cherry when I noticed the shimmering rays in one piece of the wood. It hit me right then that I have never seen cherry, which of course darkens with age, that was as old as this stuff was. I looked closely at it and found a cherry blank from the same guy and low and behold---it matched. Drat!!! :mad: Anyway thanks for your responses. I know I got some great wood in that pile, but I am used to exotics and don't know butternut or white oak. Plus most of this stuff is 20- to 60 years old. I might be open to selling or trading some of it, as there is a ton. I guess I got about 60 boardfeet of 8/8 and some 4/4 platter blanks. I bought the lathe I got this free wood with so that I can go to the next level of turning, ---bowls. I can't wait. I'm gonna need you guys for some basic info on getting started. I got some turned bowls with the load that had paper on the bottoms, instead of screwing the blanks to the plate (named?). I have sooooo much to learn. Thanks for reading this, I can't wait to hear from you all.
Click to expand...
My first suggestion to you is to find and join the nearest AAW chapter. When you have so much to learn, it is easier to learn when you can ask questions in person and get some hands on experience with experienced turners. I am not trying to discourage you from using this forum. You can learn a lot from the forum also. I’ve learned a lot about turning from both sources and still have much to learn.
Dry wood has advantages and disadvantages. Green wood cuts and turns easier but can move and crack as it dries. Most bowl turners rough out their bowls green let them dry and then finish turn them. Some will finish turn them green and consider the warping part of the beauty. For lidded boxes and spindle turning dry wood is preferred. With dry wood you do not get as much wood movement after tuning. It's pretty much what you see is what you get. Check your local library and turning club library there are many good tapes and DVD's available. Many of the local woods are good for turning. Cherry is one of the good ones. You may prefer exotics, but local woods are less expensive to practice on. Some nice local burls, or other highly figured local wood will give the exotics a run for their money in beauty. Check out what people have done in Box Elder, (also known as Manitoba Maple or Ash Leaf Maple). It is one of my favorite local woods.
 
Lordy, Lordy! Large amounts of 20-60 year old cherry? Dude, I have no idea why you would be upset that it isn't mahogany. Although it will be a tiny bit harder to turn that green, well dried and stable cherry is truly wonderful stuff. I actually prefer it to mahogany, myself.

Cherry has a beautiful pink color when freshly turned that can be maintained somewhat by using a UV resistant polyurethane finish. It also has a good transparency/chatoyance that lets you have depth to the grain/figure. Also, if you paint it with a very thin lye and water mix (or just spray it with oven cleaner) you can create a wonderful, deep brown and glowing color. Vary the concentration of lye and use multiple applications to deepen the color to one similar to or darker than mahogany.

Definitely hook up with the nearest turners club and you're sure to get many offers for wood trade and mentoring. (one in New Castle, check the chapter list for contact info)

Good Luck,
Dietrich
 
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dkulze,
Thanks, I never thought of looking up locals. I guess I expected that it would be held by and at Woodcraft, as they are the most active with that kind of thing. I have a ton of cherry, but it is fresh stuff, from our church building clearing project. I didn't realize it was so popular with turners, as I am a new one (1 year or so). This wood is such a deep copper color and it is shinier than any wood I have ever seen. Well, thanks for the advice, I'll hold onto it and appreciate it a bit more now. 🙄
I was wondering why someone on this forum turned a bunch of bowls "half-way". He said he had a trash can bag full. Now it makes sense, about the warping thing. How do you store them? Just let them dry, or slow the drying process somehow? I"ll look into the local AAW too. I've seen one Norm Aabrams show on turning a bowl, so I don't have much teaching on the subject. I love turning cherry. It turns a lot better than wenge. How do I get my hands on a gallon or so of pentacryl (without paying an arm and a leg for it)? 😕
 
Hi Fig.

Run, don't walk, away from any PEG you see. It's great stuff if you're trying to stabilize a piece of wood that's rotting out of a floor or joist but not so hot for turning, as it basically platicizes the wood (this is personal opinion, not to be confused with actual fact). What most turners seem to do rather than using a substance such as PEG is to take green wood, turn it to approx 10% of the entire piece's thickness, and dry it slowly. This can be done by putting it in a paper bag, burying it in dry shavings (wet shavings will rot or spalt it), or coat it with a drying retardant such as anchoseal (which you can actuallyl water down to about half thickness for coating roughed out blanks). Figure on about one year drying time for each inch thickness of wood. You'll lose a percentage of your pieces to cracks and checks this way, 5-20% depending on the wood, but that's where the volume approach comes in.

The hardest obstacle I've run up against in turning is patience. The actual process of turning a piece on the lathe is so rapid compared to other woodworking/carving processes that it's easy to want to do everything quickly. Prep of the wood including drying time, turning in stages, careful and gentle sanding and finishing, and frequent stops while turning a piece (as often as every cut in some instances) all pay off wonderfully in the end results and level of satisfaction.

And the single greatest thing you can do is hook up with the Delaware club. Regardless of where it meets, it is an AAW chapter and so exists to promote and support turning, not to promote and support a retail outlet. Most clubs have wood swaps, mentoring programs, demonstrations, and endless advice available for free, with a membership fee that is usually in the $10-50 range per year. I'm even pretty sure there aren't any clubs that will throw you out if you don't become a member, so you can just show up for a year or so to check it out if you want to (although it's polite to cough up the $20, ya useless sponge! ;>) .

Good luck and keep asking questions
And, yes, you are crazy.

Dietrich
 
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