Is holly any good for turning, or should I just save it up for some inlay and accents?
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Turning Holly
- Thread starter Jeremy Williams
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2009
- Messages
- 31
- Likes
- 3
Holly is very nice... I only come by it in small pieces suitable for pens and key rings. My experience is that it started out snow white and changed to a very light tinge,,, ends up looking like Ivory.. might be the finish I used.. ca and blo.
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
Dry holly is very white,fun to turn and good for all sorts of things. I use it for Inlays, segmented work and finials of all sorts. It polishes up to a high shine and is very stable.
Green holly will move a lot after turning, starts turning gray to green very quickly but other than that is a good wood to turn. It is hard but cuts well. If you turn the wood quickly and fairly thin it may dry quite white. I use the John Jordan method of blowing the water out of it to keep it white but have still had it pick up some gray in some areas.
Green holly will move a lot after turning, starts turning gray to green very quickly but other than that is a good wood to turn. It is hard but cuts well. If you turn the wood quickly and fairly thin it may dry quite white. I use the John Jordan method of blowing the water out of it to keep it white but have still had it pick up some gray in some areas.
- Joined
- May 14, 2004
- Messages
- 445
- Likes
- 1
- Location
- Middlesex County, Virginia
- Website
- www.velvitoil.com
I just finished a 17" Holly bowl. The log came to me in the summer so did the denatured alcohol soak and had no stain problems. This large piece was quite stable and warped very little. Holly is a joy to turn. I use a thin water base poly that soaks into the wood to finish. I sand with 600 grit paper between coats and after the last. This way there is some real protection against staining from whatever might be put in it. The finish is matt and does not appear to be a surface finish.
I cut out 22 Holy bowl blanks (from 7" to 8") last Friday from a fresh cut green log. Today I turned 3 of them. What fun. They turned like butter and all those strings flying over my sholder were nice. I zapped them twice in the microwave and smothered them in shaving in a paper bag. Maybe I can sand them tomorrow.