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Blue Spruce For Bowls ? ?

William Young

William Young

Joined
Dec 14, 2004
Messages
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Location
Wynndel, British Columbia, Canada
Website
www.picturetrail.com
I was given a bunch of blue spruce for firewood from a fellow in town that was cutting them down . The logs were about 12 to 18 inch diameter . I sawed them all into 16" firewood lengths and hauled them home. I have split most of it and piled it as firewood to dry for a year or so. Some is full of twisted grain and knots and I had to use a wedge and sledge to split some of it. I have one 4x4x8 cord all split and piled but I am wonderinng if I should chainsaw some of the remaining ones down the centre and try some green turning. I had tried green turning using half a dozen different methods of drying in another life and never has any luck due to cracking and splitting in the drying process . But I am wondering if it would be worth my while to try it again and this time use the alcohol method. That's about the only way I havn't tried. But if blue spruce is a useless wood for turning then I might as well not waste my time on it. . So I will wait and see if anyone has any ideas on this.
W.Y.
 
Will, I personally don't think any wood is useless for turning.........it's all good for practicing tool use .....but then again, it depends if you need the practice!
 
William Young said:
I was given a bunch of blue spruce for firewood from a fellow in town that was cutting them down . The logs were about 12 to 18 inch diameter . I sawed them all into 16" firewood lengths and hauled them home. I have split most of it and piled it as firewood to dry for a year or so. Some is full of twisted grain and knots and I had to use a wedge and sledge to split some of it. I have one 4x4x8 cord all split and piled but I am wonderinng if I should chainsaw some of the remaining ones down the centre and try some green turning. I had tried green turning using half a dozen different methods of drying in another life and never has any luck due to cracking and splitting in the drying process . But I am wondering if it would be worth my while to try it again and this time use the alcohol method. That's about the only way I havn't tried. But if blue spruce is a useless wood for turning then I might as well not waste my time on it. . So I will wait and see if anyone has any ideas on this.
W.Y.
Click to expand...
Will,
I’ve never tried Blue Spruce for turning. The conifer family doesn’t seem to be that popular among wood turners. I think part of the reason is the wood is soft and shows up bad cutting technique with tear out and fuzz. If it’s like the Blue Spruce in Ohio it will also have a lot of knots. Knots seem to make pieces more likely to crack.It seems to be easier to get a good finish on hardwoods. Hey, you have it and it’s free.I’d try some just to see what it turns like and see if you like the grain and color. I don’t know how it would dry from green. I’m a little surprised that you haven’t had much luck drying green turnings. There is a lot of information out there on how to do it. You will have some pieces crack while drying, but most should just warp. The basic rules for bowls are: make the wall thickness about 10% of the diameter to allow for warping. Try to keep the wall thickness even. Dry it slowly and evenly. I usually put mine in a paper bag and fold down the top. After the first couple of months I take them out of the bag and let them dry a little faster.
BTW I checked out your website. If you get as good with a lathe as you are with a scroll saw you will be teaching us! I’m also jealous of the view from your shop. The Ohio suburbs just aren’t that pretty.
 
Tom;
I beleive the reason I had so much trouble years ago with the green wood splitting when drying was because I wasn't aware of the proper preparation of the blanks. After getting Bill Grumbines 2 hour bowl turning DVD, I can see where I went wrong with that as well as with many other aspects of turning. We have our first snow storm of the season happening now so after that is blown over I think I'll take the chainsaw to a few pieces and cut it as per Bills directions. There are some very knotty ones but there are also some quite straight trunk sections with few or no knots so I will select them.
Thanks for your reply and thanks for the kind words about my site. When I retired about 6 years ago I had never seen a scrollsaw up close.
W.Y.
 
Ray.
I have turned several large lamps in the past from 6 x 6 fir which has similar grain to most of the softwoods. It was nice for spindle turning but a few small bowls I made with it turned OK except it was almost impossible to get a perfectly level surface. I dont mean smooth. It will turn and sand very smooth using sharp tools. I am referring to the levelness when running fingers over the surface. There are slight humps and hollows due to the soft/hard series of grain and /or growth rings. They show up more with a gloss finish. I presume this is what you are referring to as it not being a good choice for turning.
However, I was just curious if the blue spruce which is in the same family of trees as fir would be any better or worse than fir.
Regardless, I am going to try a half dozen or so and if they turn out good then that's fine. If they dont, I can chalk it up to practice and curiosity. The wood was free so it wouldnt be much of a loss because I would still have 'some' firewood left out of it :D
W.Y.
 
Will, softwoods can be beautiful. Also, the knots and limbs make for much more figure and character. I'd encourage you to turn a variety of pieces using both clear and knotty ones. The only problem I'd really encourage you to look out for is if the wood is very sappy. This can be a true nightmare.

Good luck,
Dietrich
 
Dietrick;
OH ! ! OH ! ! ! I am glad you pointed that out because this wood is very sappy. Lots of sap coming out of the ends. I had to use old heavy leather gloves when splitting and handling it..
Thanks for bringing up that point. Does this mean that I should not bother with it or is it just that it would be messy for getting sap on me and my lathe and turning tools. .
Or does it mean that because the sap is leaving it that it would be OK once dried.
W.Y.
 
Don't bother. You can set some pieces aside to dry for a few years but fresh, gummy pine sap is a nightmare when turning. It will gum up your tools instantly. The only option is to cut off the sapwood with your chainsaw.

Dietrich
 
That makes sense Dietrich. I dont need a gooey lathe and gummy tools. ;) My time would be better spent with turning some hardwood that is free of sap. Only problem is that there is very little hardwood around here to try some green wood turning again with but I am with content with turning dry wood . Maybe not as much fun as turning green but I am getting lots of long curly shavings when hollowing out dry wood bowls with my bowl gouge and at least I dont have to wait for them to to dry and turn them the second time or be concerned about how many may crack or split open in the drying process..
Thanks for your advice.

W.Y.
 
I would have assumed there would be some great hardwood forests up your way, William. I know some of the best turning wood comes from the NW, including Myrtle, Redwood, Maple, etc. You can also turn seasoned softwoods, Aspen, even driftwood if you're into damaged tools.

Dietrich
 
Dietrich;
Nope... no great hardwood forests where I am. I am way over on the esat side of BC closer to Alberta. There is some maple on the west side of the province closer to the coast but I inquired about price and they want outlandish prices for it.
I have never seen or heard of a myrtle tree growing around here and I have no idea what it even looks like. I have never seen a redwood either but I understand there is some more west and south of me. I am surrounded by forests of pine, fir, larch (tamarack) spruce,balsa etc . It is a heavy logging area of those types of wood and it goes to the mills to be sawed into lumber for the building trades.
However there is a scattering of silver and white birch which I find excellent for turning and there is quite a bit of aspen and cottonwood but it is not good for turning. Even with extremely sharp tools the end grain does not cut well and sanding is just about as bad. I turned a piece of it just yesterday again to try another trick and although I finally got it satin smooth, I wanted to try a walnut stain on it because it is a very white wood with not much grain. That was a mistake. It was the blotchiest looking mess you have ever seen and I tossed it in the designer firewood box. But it does have its place. I use a lot of it for face frames and cabinets and drawers and things that are going to be painted. I wish it was a better wood for turning because it is real cheap in this area. Mostly because it doesn't even make good firewood. Here is some aspen that I got for about 80 ¢'s bd ft and I dried it in my yard.
W.Y.
40624392.jpg
 
Hmmmm. I've seen some beautiful stuff turned out of green aspen and cottonwood. I do know the aspen has a very high silicate content so you have to sharpen your tools often.

Are you familiar with shear scraping, both with scraper and with bowl gouge? I can't do it worth chit with a scraper but have gotten pretty good at using the gouge (known as the Ellsworth shuffle). Also, the beech and birch should be good and I've heard Tamarak can be beautiful.

Have you considered harvesting old fence posts for turning wood? You have to be careful for nails but it usually has alot of character.

By the way, that is a truly magnificent view. Worth the lack of good turning wood, in my opinion.

Dietrich
 
OOOH ! ... beech. I would love to get some of that. A great eastern wood .We logged a bunch back on the farm in Ontario in another life and used all the limbs for firewood. Grey smooth bark about the color and texture of an elephants hide..
Yes I learned about the tangent cutting and shear scraping for the first time on Bill Grumbines DVD and that was a big help to me. My bowl gouge has a fingernail grind and works quite well for that especially on the harder woods. But the aspen that grows around here sure is not very nice to turn compared to some of the harder woods. Of course I have only turned it dry so I dont know how it behaves green.
Fence posts around here would be cedar .
W.Y.
 
Cedar's good. Dust is kinda toxic but the wood is usually nice, especially the knots and any red cedar.

Dietrich

Almost forgot, Ebay is great for getting wood to turn. lots of bowl blanks and funky pieces, most at really good prices. Shipping costs but a nice 8-10" diameter bowl blank for $5-10 + shipping isn't too bad.
 
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Thanks Dietrich;
I am one of the few that have no experience whatsoever with the workings of Ebay but those prices sound good. Perhaps rather than upset anybody about off topic information if indeed it is considered as off topic, you could email me at bzy@uniserve.com and provide a link to the area in Ebay that I should be looking.
W.Y.
 
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