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How to save your teeth

Jeff Jilg

Jeff Jilg

Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
1,287
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5
Location
Austin, TX
Website
www.woodturner.org
No one was injured during this turning session.

I was roughing out a bunch of box elder this weekend before it started spalting. This platter had been chainsawed out of a portion near the trunk. The tree actually had two main trunks which had grown together.

The pictures below show the piece when it was intact, then when after it broke. I had been roughing out this piece carefully because I noticed the bark inclusion during the chainsaw work. A bark inclusion occurs when a branch or another trunk grows together, trapping the original bark between the 2 pieces.

I watched the bark inclusion carefully while turning. About 10 minutes prior to these pictures nearly all the cream colored solid wood (connecting the 2 pieces) started to disappear as the piece got smaller. That's when the first pic got taken. I gave the piece a whack while not spinning and nothing happened.

Then the lathe speed got turned way down AND I stood to one side while resuming the turning. Didn't take long. The smaller piece bounced off the lathe and didn't damage anything - because the speed was real slow.

I know a lot of new turners read this forum. Pay attention to the wood you use. It's not always stable or solid. Slow down the speed if you detect potential problems. I often turn off the lathe and inspect the piece to ensure the shape is progressing and the piece is stable.

I was able to chainsaw the larger piece into a decent blank, which made a nice roughout. Teeth are nice....I plan to keep the ones I have. 😀 Comments welcome.
 

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Heck, even the smaller piece looks big enough to get one or two decent blanks out of it. And I thought catching flying things were part of your act.😀

JimQ
 
The whole piece probably weighed ~20 pounds. I'm processing about 1,000-1,400 pounds of the tree, so that little piece is kinda inconsequential compared to the main blanks. I been lucky so far and didn't have to catch anything!
 
A good friend had almost exactly the same thing occur. Same wood, same problem. Turned right through the good wood unexpectedly and it came apart. Only difference was that her's was 38" diameter. She took out a ceiling light fixture, shattered a 3/4" square box scraper in a nearby holder, and got a few bruises and cuts herself from flying wood and glass.

Easy to forget that woodturning can be extremely dangerous when things go wrong. Care and patience is a must.

Dietrich.
 
Totally agree Dietrich. It's not always the individual's fault - this can be a dangerous hobby. Working with known solid wood helps reduce the risk.

Clem - my teeth have filtered enough coffee at this point that Steve would probably moderate my post if I uploaded a pic! They are in intact though.
 
I have an unpatched hole in my shops ceiling that is a reminder of the dangers of woodturning. Returning a 16" walnut bowl. I stopped the lathe, and accidentally hit the speed control. Turned it back on and it disintegrated after it hit the banjo. A 1/3 on the two opposite walls and a 1/3 through the ceiling. No one hurt though, but sure gets your heart anaerobic in a hurry.
 
That's the kind of exercise I'm not looking for!

Box Elder processing:
So far I've processed 14 blanks of this box elder. Normally I wax up the turned blanks to prevent checking and cracking. However some of these pieces were rough turned 5 days ago and so far no checking or cracking. It was pretty wet wood. Is this unique to box elder, or am I going to walk out one morning and find a bunch of cracks?
 
Jeff Jilg said:
That's the kind of exercise I'm not looking for!

Box Elder processing:
So far I've processed 14 blanks of this box elder. Normally I wax up the turned blanks to prevent checking and cracking. However some of these pieces were rough turned 5 days ago and so far no checking or cracking. It was pretty wet wood. Is this unique to box elder, or am I going to walk out one morning and find a bunch of cracks?
Click to expand...
It would be cheap insurance to wax the end grain at least unless you finish turning it wet very soon and microwave or alcohol dry it or some other(?) quick drying process.

If you will give me your address, I will do you a favor and help unload some of that terrible unstable box elder before it splits all over the place and causes you nothing but grief.

I was given a chunk of wood last year by one of my club members that is supposed to be box elder, but I am not so certain about it. It does have a few red streaks, but the color is closer to being a dull rusty red -- not the bright beautiful color that I was hoping to get. Also the wood is not the light creamy color of your wood -- it is closer to a golden oak color. Do any of the other maples have red streaks that are not as showy. I am thinking that it might possibly be silver leaf maple. I was hoping to make a table lamp out of the wood, but now I will need to start a new search as this wood is too non-descript to be useful for a table lamp.
 
Jeff Jilg said:
Box Elder processing:
So far I've processed 14 blanks of this box elder. Normally I wax up the turned blanks to prevent checking and cracking. However some of these pieces were rough turned 5 days ago and so far no checking or cracking. It was pretty wet wood. Is this unique to box elder, or am I going to walk out one morning and find a bunch of cracks?
Click to expand...

Don't get much here - too far north, but it's a fairly forgiving wood in drying. I did, however, learn not to cut too thin initially, because my stuff came from city trees with a lot of unseen stresses to work out. If you want round later, leave a bit of extra thickness. Almost impossible to follow grain differences for predictive purposes in the stuff I had. Normally I leave 5-7% of diameter as wall thickness. Made sure I was at the high end or better when guessing the grain.

Wood doesn't begin to shrink until it's losing bound moisture. If you're keeping it cool, you may still be above the ~30% by weight bound moisture level. I wouldn't coat - black mildew grows fast and ugly on white wood. Just monitor the surface and open box or cool damp if you start to show surface faults other than in the places it's almost impossible to avoid them.

If the wood's real green, it must smell pretty bad. Like crushing those Asian ladybugs. Oh well better'n elm.
 
No Box Elder cracks!

It has now been over a week on some of the box elder that I roughed out. So far no cracks. Almost all other woods I've worked on before would have developed at least hairline cracks or splits by now. It's kinda nice to have the wood dry without having to wax it up.
 
I've never had problems with Box Elder cracking. And, yup, if you're golden with rusty red, you're probably not box elder. Red or silver maple is a good chance.

I don't wax box elder anymore cause it just plain rots too fast. I posted to Jeff on another thread that a good coat of UV resistant eurythane or spar varnish fresh off the lathe is a way to keep the red really bright.

Jeff, have you considered some serious liquid epoxy or CA to reattach that original UFO back together? Would be a really cool piece, with the inclusion running right through it. A couple of ounces of medium thickness CA should do the trick.

Good luck,
Dietrich (AKA Toothless Death Boy)
 
For the UFO platter, I already cut up and turned the larger piece. The small piece may not be worth fiddling with. I still need to process the rest of this load which has more big ones in it.
 
The landscaper/arborist buddy of mine has worked in Austin for 20 years and never ran across any Box Elder larger than 8" (too small). This particular tree was about 40" at the base....just small enough where our 20" bars could get all the way thru.

Like Dietrich, I was on a woodcollecting moratium. My objective was to start finishing some of the roughouts. Then my buddy called about the Box Elder AND some cypress. So now I added 2 more woods to the pile! Dietrich is right, that Box Elder smells like moldy gym socks or urine. It's pretty rank.
 
Actually, Angelo, Box Elder is pretty common up here (in Boston myself). Also known as Manitoba Maple. Now the nice candy is a little harder to come by. I haunt the local log yard looking for it and get one or two nice logs a year.

Dietrich
 
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