Turning MDF

[olaf Vogel]

It's been an interesting day of Firsts.

I've been installing a dust control system. Ran all the pipes, 10", but the blower inlet is 11" and the outlet 9". Called around for reducers, they had to be custom, $40 each, but 3 week wait time.

But hey, I'm a woodturner. I can make my own!

Attempt number 1 was 5 laminated chucks of plywood. Very rough, far too porous, a real pain to work with.

So my options were:
- Baltic birch. Good, but very hard, heavy, expensive and I do t need strength.
- MDF. I had lots, easy to glue, should be easy to turn.

Well, it's very interesting. It can generate a ton of dust. The scraper wasn't bad. I finally grabbed the big gouge, resharpened and attacked with a lot of pressure. And set a new personal record for the longest curls!

15" wide and 6" deep generated a huge pile of 10' long curls. Fun!

Also, my wife is a painter, doing large show in a month and wanted all the paintings framed.
The Local lumber shops were expensive or crappy quality. I found a sawmill sell ash at $2 a board foot.
I've never bough rough cut lumber before, but...

Out in the country, very icy roads, snow blowing sidesways, with my Saab full of rough cut lumber. White knuckles. Not fun.

Cut them on my table saw and ran them through my cheap, tiny planer. Never used it before.
Turns out the ash is gorgeous. Dense, hard, nice grain. The frames will look great. What's this like to turn?

Tomorrow I get to try out my new/old mitre trimmer.

Kinda what I like about woodworking. Always something new.

 

[Bill Boehme]

MDF is useful stuff, but I hate all the noxious dust and it's really abrasive and dulls edges fast because of the binders that glue the wood fibers together - polymerized urea formaldehyde resin and MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate), not to mention it is hazardous to breathe.

 

[Jamie Straw]

[SNIP]
Turns out the ash is gorgeous. Dense, hard, nice grain. The frames will look great. What's this like to turn?[SNIP]

Don't know what it's like to turn, but ash came into favor in the early- to mid-20th C. after oak became scarce -- think of all that Golden Oak furniture that used to fill antique stores. Finished carefully, it can look almost like Golden Oak at a casual glance. Heavier than sin -- I refinished and sold an ash church pew years ago. Heavy lift, that one.

 

[Joe Greiner]

Ash

Ash is the wood of choice for baseball bats and axe handles.

 

[Andy Chen]

It's been an interesting day of Firsts.

.........
Turns out the ash is gorgeous. Dense, hard, nice grain. The frames will look great. What's this like to turn?
.........

Kinda what I like about woodworking. Always something new.

Ash is very pleasant to turn. However, because it's so light in color, sanding scratches are hard to hide. You'll have to sand it to at least 2k grit with power sanding before you put on the finish. Enjoy.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I like using MDF for vacuum chucks because it's non-porous and airtight. It is also good for turning projects that require a stable base and a high end automotive quality paint finish.

 

[Gretch Flo]

Ash is very pleasant to turn. However, because it's so light in color, sanding scratches are hard to hide. You'll have to sand it to at least 2k grit with power sanding before you put on the finish. Enjoy.

I have turned quite a bit of ash in the last few years as the emerald ash bore is/has killed most of the ash in Mich and surrounding states. One large amount I got from a neighbor had lots of curl. The open graininess and lite color I found it easy to sand and not show as a darker wood might. I have got ahold of some from my fire wood source that had dark tan /light brown heart wood. Sometimes there were tongues of brownish stain migrated into the outer lite sap wood and made it interesting. It was easy to turn.
I still don't like ash. To me it's boring. Gretch