What to do?

[pyrocasto]

I've got some 13/16" boards of African Mahogany that I havent figured what to do with yet.

All boards are 10-12' long, as big as 19" and 21" wide.

Not sure if the wood would be best just glue up, or if it would be better to use it in with different woods in laminated stuff? Maybe both?

I had started a laminated bowl with the AM and some Maple. It was looking good but an accident led it to the trash can. One thing I noticed was it tore out where the glue joins were. But from what I hear that's normal for mohogany?

Another sorta newbie to turning here so any help is appreciated. 🙂

 

[TurningDog]

personally this would be flatwork stock for me. If you don't do flat work you could probably get some nice thick stock in trade for it. These boards simply are too wide to waste on cutting down and glueing up.

 

[pencheff]

I've got some 13/16" boards of African Mahogany that I havent figured what to do with yet.

All boards are 10-12' long, as big as 19" and 21" wide.

I'm not trying to be flippant here 😱 ... if it were me I'd save them for flat work and continue to look for something better suited to turning. Or, if you aren't a flat woodworker maybe you could simply sell them to someone who is and put the proceeds toward thicker material.

If you just have to turn this wood though they'd make lovely platters.

 

[pyrocasto]

Point well taken. What I will probably do then is keep a couple of the smaller boards for segmented pieces, and sell the rest and bigger boards for some gas money. If some of my local places have the right wood maybe they'll trade, but I'll have to stop by and see.

Family business is actually custom cabinetry, but there's not too many things I think would look good in a house with that luminance of wood.

I prefer turning green anyhow, so it will be more free space in my shop. Gotta make room for some new additions(apple) to my stock pile. 😀

 

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Chris, here's one idea - try making a few tapered, stacked ring bowls. The simplest would be to cut a circle, mount it on a waste block of MDF the same size with double-sided tape, and then proceed to cut individual rings with a thin parting tool at about a 45 degree angle. If you space the parting cuts about 1" apart, you should be able to stack the rings into a bowl shape and then finish turn. You might have fun trying this technique. If you have questions, feel free to email me at malcolm@tahoeturner.com .

 

[Bill Boehme]

Chris, here's one idea - try making a few tapered, stacked ring bowls. The simplest would be to cut a circle, mount it on a waste block of MDF the same size with double-sided tape, and then proceed to cut individual rings with a thin parting tool at about a 45 degree angle. If you space the parting cuts about 1" apart, you should be able to stack the rings into a bowl shape and then finish turn. You might have fun trying this technique. If you have questions, feel free to email me at malcolm@tahoeturner.com .

Malcolm,

Thanks for the great idea. I never cease to be amazed at the great ideas that you have for different ways of using wood. I am glad that I saw this posting because I have some expensive wood and wanted to maximize its use in order to soothe my guilt about buying it.

Bill

 

[jimwtolly]

Chris, wood that width would make some nice platters

 

[john lucas]

I started my turning career with small flat boards because that was all I could get. I turned a lot of segmented pieces even though I had to flatten the boards with a hand plane. It was good experience. I tried all the various segmenting techniques from Stave to segments, stack laminated and cutting rings on the bandsaw. It's all fun. Gluing them up with contrasting colors it is fun to turn candlesticks, wine stoppers and christmas ornaments.
I started making my handled mirrors because of this use of small flat wood.