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What’s on your lathe?

My wife saw a guy cutting down trees and brought home some bradford pear and ailanthus (Tree of Heaven). I wouldn't have bothered with the ailanthus, but she didn't know any better. It's a trash tree and invasive species.

This was from a crotch. While I don't like the bowl, I figured I'd post it here since we don't see much Tree of Heaven. The right side above the crotch allows light through, but only that one spot.

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Kent Reisdorph said:
My wife saw a guy cutting down trees and brought home some bradford pear and ailanthus (Tree of Heaven). I wouldn't have bothered with the ailanthus, but she didn't know any better. It's a trash tree and invasive species.

This was from a crotch. While I don't like the bowl, I figured I'd post it here since we don't see much Tree of Heaven. The right side above the crotch allows light through, but only that one spot.

View attachment 59796
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Kent Reisdorph said:
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Kent I have a few Ailanthus trees cut up and turned a bunch of the wood, one was so large my 24" bar was not able to get to the centre, had to cut a piece out the one side to get deep enough to cut a piece off, it was also very long, well over 100 feet tall, but there was a lot of spider splits in the log, so I was only able to use wood from the top end 😕😳.

I do like the looks of the wood and it turns and finishes well, has a bit of a smell, but that disappears as the wood dries.

Ailanthus.jpgAilanthus bowl inside.jpg
Got a burl from that big log and turned it.

Ailanthus burl bowl.jpg
 
For years I have been wanting to join the procrastination club, but I never have gotten around to it. The same has been true for making an easier way to remove the tailstock from my lathe. I had thought about a swing-away but I also want to use the bed extension on the lower level and the swing-away wouldn't work with that (at least that's what I think). With my newly acquired sphere jig that requires the tailstock to be removed I decided to take the time and make a fixture to remove the tailstock. It sits on a roll cart that I turned the top tray upside down and is made from scraps I had on hand.
fix627.jpgfix628.jpg

I even had time to give the new to me sphere jig a test run. I am impressed on how well this thing is built!

sjig631.jpg
 
Cool, Leo, good to know! Love that little Yew hollowform as well.

Here’s another cool timber. Japanese Ternstroemia, an ornamental shrub. Has a really beautiful color that turns plum-ish when oiled. Tight-grained and nice to turn. Small though. This Calabash is about 1.25” diameter. Also a shot of raw and oiled wood for comparison.

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Michael Anderson said:
Cool, Leo, good to know! Love that little Yew hollowform as well.

Here’s another cool timber. Japanese Ternstroemia, an ornamental shrub. Has a really beautiful color that turns plum-ish when oiled. Tight-grained and nice to turn. Small though. This Calabash is about 1.25” diameter. Also a shot of raw and oiled wood for comparison.

View attachment 59835

View attachment 59836
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I like that little calabash Michael, I looked the Ternstroemia up, seems there are quite a few varieties of it, you know there are so many different woods to turn, and yes often overlooked because of the small sizes, I'm wondering how long this color transformation will stay like that, I have had color show that only lasted for a mere minute and was gone again.

This was more red than shown, as in the time I got my camera it had become less already, oxidation will cause color to appear and also to disappear, though usually not this quick.

And of course the climate were we live will give us more or less opportunities to get our hands on these gems.

fleeting color.jpg
Ha here is another one I forgot about, Ligustrum vulgare, used as a hedge and it is a nice white wood to turn, and yes small.

Ligustrum.jpg
 
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before and after some pewas across a small superficial crack. Adler for pewas, don’t know wood—hopefully I’ll be told. One coat PTO. I’d love some “circle” pewas but can’t find.* I know they would not be pewas.
IMG_5136.jpegIMG_5140.jpeg
Just emailed Big Island Engraving, got a quick response, and they do have various size round inserts . . .
 
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James Seyfried said:
For years I have been wanting to join the procrastination club, but I never have gotten around to it. The same has been true for making an easier way to remove the tailstock from my lathe. I had thought about a swing-away but I also want to use the bed extension on the lower level and the swing-away wouldn't work with that (at least that's what I think). With my newly acquired sphere jig that requires the tailstock to be removed I decided to take the time and make a fixture to remove the tailstock. It sits on a roll cart that I turned the top tray upside down and is made from scraps I had on hand.
View attachment 59832View attachment 59833

I even had time to give the new to me sphere jig a test run. I am impressed on how well this thing is built!

View attachment 59829
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And who made the jig?
 
odie said:
Howdy Greg.....

I have twelve bowls in the final stages of finishing. They are done two at a time. In order to complete this process, it usually takes a minimum of a couple weeks. The time it takes for the DO to fully harden might depend on the temperature and atmosphere they cure in. Overnight is usually long enough under the best of circumstances, but my two week wait is more from the process of completing twelve bowls in eight steps.

-----odie-----
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Would you share your “8 steps?”
 
Robert Lindstadt said:
Was going to try to finish this for a woodturners daughter, she asked her dad to make a zipper vase but just never got to finish it, unfortunately he had cut the slot out already and while trying to clean it up I got a catch and of the lathe it it went
now I insearch of replacement wood to recreate this vase!View attachment 59891View attachment 59892
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Looks like it could be reassembled and the cracks embellished with pewas or wire lacing to look a bit like a zipper.
 
Ash with a hint of quilted figure.

This will be a salad bowl. Deliberately turned extra thick with the thought of being very durable with heavy extensive use. The shape on the side, and near the rim is done with the purpose of giving a convenient hand hold on the side.

The size is approximately 11" x 3", and the thickness is about 3/8" at the rim tapering up to about 1/2" near the bottom.

-o-
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Started work on a natural edge Hornbeam bowl. I enjoy the look of the tree, all muscle bound looking. I hope the fluting will make an interesting rim contour. It turns well enough wet.
Interesting are the color/density differences in bands. The darker bands seem to be wetter than the other areas. The pith might bite me, will see. I’m going to treat the pith and radiating cracks with ca later today, after spraying with shellac to hopefully keep the ca where I need it.

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Nice wood to turn, I never saw such large Hornbeam, I hope you can keep it from self destruction, it being a very dense wood there is no place for the wood to give and still very wet there is going to be shrinking.

You sure need to give it a lot of time to dry, maybe a good subject for boiling to take some of the tension out,goodluck,I hope you can keep it alive 1thumb.gif
 
Alan Weinberg said:
before and after some pewas across a small superficial crack. Adler for pewas, don’t know wood—hopefully I’ll be told. One coat PTO. I’d love some “circle” pewas but can’t find.* I know they would not be pewas.
View attachment 59887View attachment 59888
Just emailed Big Island Engraving, got a quick response, and they do have various size round inserts . . .
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I'm pretty sure that it is Afzelia wood. (doussie species)
 
Leo Van Der Loo said:
Nice wood to turn, I never saw such large Hornbeam, I hope you can keep it from self destruction, it being a very dense wood there is no place for the wood to give and still very wet there is going to be shrinking.

You sure need to give it a lot of time to dry, maybe a good subject for boiling to take some of the tension out,goodluck,I hope you can keep it alive View attachment 59975
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It really is big for the hornbeam I see. I’m not sure how much movement I’ll see. My plan is to turn and finish in one sitting. I’ll sand as the surface dries, then immediately flood with walnut oil, possibly thinned with turpentine. This has worked beautifully on oak pieces, so hoping for the same here.
I know this is contrary to proven methods, oil and water don’t mix, but has so far been effective. ( I feel a need to point out that I am going against the herd think!)
 
Jim McLain said:
I use a Tantung negative rake scraper for the final cuts.
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Interesting to see you using Tantung, Jim.

In my testing of various tool steels I found that Tantung performed very well at doing heavy duty push cuts, outperforming 10% vanadium steel and way ahead of an M42 steel, but similar in durability to a 15% vanadium steel...

Push cut test in v. hard wood x3.jpg
​
It did OK with light scraping cuts, but not decisively better than HSS...

Light scraping cuts - Tt vs HSS.png​

But, because of its coarser carbides, it fell well short of the others in doing very fine shearing cuts...

Light finishing shear cuts .png
​
One of the advantages of Tantung over Tungsten is that it doesn't need to be sharpened with diamond and only needs standard abrasive wheels, although it prefers a finer wheel to avoid the larger carbides being pulled out of the edge.

The advantage of Tungsten is that it cuts for longer yet gain than any of the others...

Push cut - TC vs HSS.png​
 
Neil S said:
Interesting to see you using Tantung, Jim.

In my testing of various tool steels I found that Tantung performed very well at doing heavy duty push cuts, outperforming 10% vanadium steel and way ahead of an M42 steel, but similar in durability to a 15% vanadium steel...
It did OK with light scraping cuts, but not decisively better than HSS...

But, because of its coarser carbides, it fell well short of the others in doing very fine shearing cuts...
One of the advantages of Tantung over Tungsten is that it doesn't need to be sharpened with diamond and only needs standard abrasive wheels, although it prefers a finer wheel to avoid the larger carbides being pulled out of the edge.

The advantage of Tungsten is that it cuts for longer yet gain than any of the others...

Click to expand...
Thanks Neil, nice analysis. I got hooked on Tantung way back when I bought my first Dennis Stewart hollowing system. I wish they made v11 or v15 in 1/8 inch thick scraper blade stock.
 
Marc Banka said:
It really is big for the hornbeam I see. I’m not sure how much movement I’ll see. My plan is to turn and finish in one sitting. I’ll sand as the surface dries, then immediately flood with walnut oil, possibly thinned with turpentine. This has worked beautifully on oak pieces, so hoping for the same here.
I know this is contrary to proven methods, oil and water don’t mix, but has so far been effective. ( I feel a need to point out that I am going against the herd think!)
Click to expand...

According to Wood Database, American hornbeam has a Tangential/Radial shrink rate of 2.0. As a comparison, red oak is 2.2, black walnut is 1.4, and black cherry is 1.9. The higher the ratio, the more ovaling you can expect.

While thinking about this, I found a page with the T, R, and T/R% handily listed: Wood Shrinkage Table

In my limited experience, persimmon shrinks a lot. Its T/R ratio is only 1.4, which is pretty good. However, it's tangential is 7.9 and radial is 11.2. Compare that to black walnut at 5.5 and 7.8. So while persimmon and black walnut will shrink at the same T/R rate, the persimmon will move twice as much.

I know you all know most of this. I just got down a rabbit hole. 😉
 
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