Norfolk Island Pine - End grain or not

[BuddyBooker]

I would be interested in a discussion about coring endgrain on Norfolk Island Pine to retain that beautiful star pattern as opposed to splitting and coring/turning side grain.

Your thoughts?

 

[rick pixley]

done it

I've done this twice with good results.The only care is that you can't make it too thin and tools must be very sharp.One of our club members does this regularly,even with no knots, and the grain pattern is suprising..Rick

 

[dkulze]

Ron Kent does that for a living. Look up his site. That seems to be the way to do it.

Dietrich

 

[Hawaii Turner]

Turning NIP, end grain is way to go, IMO

Aloha,
While I turn for a living, it is only a fraction in NIP. There is quite a few of us that turn NIP here, and almost all of it it turned endgrain. The knots aren't always utilized for a star pattern, but mostly located somewhere on the outside. What we mostly try to get is the spalting lines/designs that oftentimes show up in NIP. Everyone has their own theory, or method of inducing or increasing the amount of spalt, and turning to exploit it. I have turned several pieces side grain, and didn't like them. I have one drying right out of Cook Pine, which is similar, but has a darker center, like a heartwood/sapwood kind of log, whereas the NIP is consistant all the way through the log. The "sapwood" part of a CIP log is similar to the wood throughout the NIP log.NIP takes better to producing a translucent look than CIP.
I am getting long here, but would be willing to share my insight into turning techniques for these woods, if anyone is interested.
Aloha, Doug (up to my knees in CIP shavinge 2 weeks ago)

 

[Sascha]

i just had 15 logs shipped to my house from florida, some of the 20" in diameter. i have turned one and it came out pretty good for my first. it's just hard to get a hold of it here in california.
i'd post a pic, but i am too lazy right now to shrnk down the pics.
i have fun turning it, but i came across some local pine with lots of spalting. the only thing, knots are very desired in NIP turning, the regular pine one only has one. but both look so similar.
i rough turn the blak to about 3/4", then i soak it over night in a solution of 1 part water, 1 part kirkland(costco) dishwashing liquid. i have a 32 gallon trash can with about 22 gallons of liquid in it. that helps to stop cracking and warping. then the next day i finish turn it to about 3/32 to 1/8" and bath it in watco. i'll mix my own soon, but for now, watco is it. so far i use a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of finish, but i am looking for a container to get about 15 or 20 gallons of finish in it, just need something that's about 24" x24" x24" or so.
i soak it in there for 12 hours, then pull it out and let dry for 12 hours. repeat as many times as you want.every time i pull it out, i wet sand with the oil on.
final step, when it's dry, i buff it with steel wool so it's smooth as glass and apply 3 coats of arm-r-seal. let dry for 24 hours and buff on the wheels.
they get pretty translucent.

for more info, www.ronkent.com

i can't wait to turn my large pieces, but my nova is being replaced with a stubby 1000 on wednesday, so now i just need to sell the nova dvr. then i'll make huge NIP bowls

hope that helps

sascha