I Have a green Elm Crotch

[Raul McCai]

Actually I have a couple of 'em, but right now I got one in my shop that I'm thinking of turning into a vase or closed vessel of some sort.

I know there's a good chance of a nice figured section inside called the flame.
** pretty sure I want to turn it so the pith of the tree runs from chuck to tailstock.
** Unsure how exactly how to find it the flame.
** Unsure whether I should be concerned with pith wood eg; removing it to control shrinkage.
** Unsure about how much I should leave on the blank for later turning after drying (Siberian Elm dries fast usually very nicely)
got any suggestions? know of any good Tutorials?

 

[hockenbery]

Crotch figure is the prettiest grain in most trees.
The flame is generally quite thin. 1/2-1" thick on either side of the pith is common.
I have seen a flame that was over 4" thick on one side of the pith in a large box elder.
Rip the crotch through the three piths. The flame will be between the top part of the Y In the exposed piths.


The crotch flame shows off best in face grain turnings platters, bottoms of bowls, tops of wide hollow forms.
They make wonderful NE bowls with three wings. These can be heart shaped if you put the center in the right place.
I do a demo on turning natural,edge bowls from a crotch.
The slides I use to introduce the demo show how I cut the crotch and how I find centers.
http://aaw.hockenbery.net/Natural edge crotch bowl.pdf

I have a video On YouTube of the demo for the Tri-County Woodturner's shows how to turn the bowl. Jan Carl does i nice job with the camera

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jVoI12Kfug

 

[hockenbery]

@Raul McCai
It is difficult to show the crotch in a end grain turning.
It can be done but requires some serious planning when cutting the blank.

phil Brown who turns trumpet shaped bowls has done several bowls with the flame running up one side wall.
the flame can be run up the side of a fairly straight walled vase.

One issue is the flame is going to warp differently than the rest of the wood.
If you are double turning this isn't a concern.

Platters are the easiest form to show crotch flame in.
For platters. You can cut slabs about 1" thick on either side of the pith.
Dry them like boards with anchor seal on the end grain and over the flame area.
Then turn the platters. You might get more than one slab on either side but unlikely.
You can also green turn a thin square edge platters 1/8" thick and let it warp. Instant gratification.

Todd Hoyer and Warren Carpenter turn endgrain vase shapes by turning out the wood with the crotch figure to make the bowl.
The result are dramatic winged vessels.

Look out for bark inclusions.
Stitching on the bark in the valley of the crotch usually means a bark inclusion.
These are structural defects. Nothing but bark holding the parts together.

 

[Raul McCai]

Platters huh? Thanks for the response. I hadn't considered platters but it might be a good way for me to figure out where this flame pattern is in a crotch (as a general proposition) so I can think more strategically about the other two crotches in this tree that I'm chewing into. All I've ever done with crotches before is chain saw them into firewood.

 

[Hy Tran]

I was fortunate enough to see Rudy Lopez demonstrate making a winged bowl from a small crotch. A handout for the demo is here: http://rudolphlopez.com/handouts.html . If your elm crotch is not too large (in the demo for our club, the crotch pieces had the large part of the limb in the 4-5" diameter range), that's another approach.

As Al said: The fancy figure is where all three of the piths (pithes? pithi? phthoui?) run into each other. You want to try to retain that part of the wood, rather than turn it away. The plane formed by the three piths lines is the plane of maximum figure.

 

[hockenbery]

If you have a large crotch,
You have the option of cutting to one side of the pith enough for the foot and bottom thickness to put the maximum flame in the face of the platte ror the bottom of a bowl.
In this way you get one potentially spectacular blank instead of two good ones.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Here's a good Wood Magazine article that describes feathering in wood: Figuring out Figure. Here is a brief description along with lots of pictures at Hobbit House.

If you do a Google search using the word "feather" or "feathering" along with crotch wood figure or similar terminology, there are sone good pictures to illustrate where the feathering usually is the greatest. In simple terms, if you start with a "Y" shaped crotch log and slice it in half so that you have two bookmatched "Y" shaped halves, that should expose the greatest amount of feathering.

I think that a shallow natural edge bowl or platter like Al shows in his video has the best chance of revealing the feathering. I think that it is a bit risky to turn a vase with the hope of exposing the figure. You might wind up with a bad shape trying to find the figure or discover that it's only visible on the inside or that you are only seeing an edge view or most of it was turned away in a futile hope to find more feathering. The feathering may be wide, but frequentlnot very thick. Once feathering is found it's better to stop removing wood too soon rather than too late.

Bradford pear has weak crotches and that might be the reason that feathering is found in it. Here is a small natural edge bowl that I don't turned from BP in 2010.



The figure is actually nicer on the bottom. The quill of the feather points upwards at the crotch while the plume is beneath it.

 

[hockenbery]

Small natural edge bowls can be turned from the crotch still in the round when the stem of the Y is 4-6" in diameter. In these I turn the back first and make the tenon so that the piths will be just at the bottom edge. Since these are small non functional bowls I turn them 1/8" thick or so.

The often come out quite nicely.

 

[hockenbery]

I was fortunate enough to see Rudy Lopez demonstrate making a winged bowl from a small crotch. A handout for the demo is here: http://rudolphlopez.com/handouts.html . If your elm crotch is not too large (in the demo for our club, the crotch pieces had the large part of the limb in the 4-5" diameter range), that's another approach.

As Al said: The fancy figure is where all three of the piths (pithes? pithi? phthoui?) run into each other. You want to try to retain that part of the wood, rather than turn it away. The plane formed by the three piths lines is the plane of maximum figure.

Rudy is a good friend, a distant neighbor (20 miles), and we're both active members of AAW and the
Tri-county Woodturner's. Rudy is the poster boy for how fast a someone with artist talent, enthusiasm, and quality classes can become a world class turner.

It's also a small world in some ways. In 2010 I assisted Trent Bosch at Arrowmont and Rudy was in the class. Rudy was quite good then an he has been teaching at Arrowmont for a couple of years.
A few years ago Rudy, Trent, Jimmy Clewes and I got to do a panel at the AAW on woodturning classes.

 

[Owen Lowe]

People, people, people. I gave you three days:

Whether your crotch is large or small – “they” say size doesn’t matter – a quick visit to the Dr. for penicillin will clear up the green in no time at all.

 

[John Torchick]

Owen, I thought of that but felt a bit of discretion was in order. 😉

 

[Mark Hepburn]

People, people, people. I gave you three days:

Whether your crotch is large or small – “they” say size doesn’t matter – a quick visit to the Dr. for penicillin will clear up the green in no time at all.

😀😀
Owen, thank you. I've been waiting for someone to step up and commiserate with Raul. I just couldn't figure out how to do so with any decorum.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Ahem! 🙄

 

[Mike Johnson]

Started on a Coffee Tree crotch today, should be an interesting piece when it is done.

 

[Raul McCai]

Wing bowl - - OK I'll give it a go.
https://the-axlotal-tank.smugmug.com/Little-Elm-Bowls/n-CbPgCH/i-fCxF43V/A

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-zhhJrmM/0/1920/i-zhhJrmM-1920.mp4
Hmmm trying to embed a video from Smugmug & I get an error that "The specified media can not be embedded as media"

 

[Raul McCai]

Well the crotch is still sitting there. Some one said something about winged bowls and I just had to have a go at a couple here's another. The Elm os green so I'm just roughing 'em out coating 'em in pentacryl (because I have some) and wrapping 'em in paper.

The CAUTION sign is apropos of something I am sure

 

[John Tisdale]

Raul,
Attached is a tall axial-turn from the crotch of a walnut - it is about 22" tall.
I think it will be an attractive piece when finished - in the pic it is in the roughing stage - I will fair the long curve after it gets to 6%MC.
I've turn lots of elm, mostly cedar elm but some Siberian - I like it.

 

[John Torchick]

Mike, that is a beautiful piece of wood.
Raul, I take off the CAUTION labels. I find them distracting when turning. Yeh, right? 🙄 Looking forward to the finished piece.

 

[Raul McCai]

've turn lots of elm, mostly cedar elm but some Siberian - I like it.

Nice piece of walnut you got there.

When you turn the Siberian Elm in the dry state, do you find the dust causes itching? I do, washing gets it off but I gotta wash all over. It's an awfully pretty wood species.