Leopard wood sanding checks

[Paul Engle]

Anyone having experience with Leopard wood sanding ? I am doing a small bowl and the outside after sanding to 600 grt , the rays are showing small checks parallel with the rays, I ran outside air over the lathe with my dust collector to keep the heat down ( using infrared temp gauge) and it did not heat up significantly. Is the check like surface normal? This bowl is for a private collection but do not want to buy half the Aussie forest to get one bowl and do not want to spend a lot of time on this if I cannot resolve the check issue. Thanks for any helpful insight!

 

[KenN]

Chips,

I wish I could help you. I currently have a series of Leopardwood lidded vessels under way - finish to P400 and have not noticed any checking at all.

I will be interested to hear if anyone else has the problem.

 

[-e-]

Those are probably heat-checks from sanding.

to avoid this, try wet-sanding on dense woods.

mineral oil makes a great lubricant for this applicaiton.