Crappy Wood useful for more than just Firewood....

[Brian Gustin]

So, I was given a bunch of sugar maple from neighbor's tree (It was hit by lightning back in 2016, less than 30 feet from where I was standing in the shop, I saw it glow orange and then BOOM!) Tree finally stopped growing leaves this year, and it was finally taken down. About half the tree was pretty much rotten, though there was some usable wood from parts of it. I'd cut out some semi-decent pieces and then had leftover chunks that I finally decided to round out to spindle blanks and see if there was anything worth saving to my stash of rounds (2 pieces out of 8 made it) a couple other pieces held together, but ended up being too wormhole infested - Firewood, right? Well, I decided to keep one on the lathe and put in some practice time with the skew (Can never have enough skew practice) - Since I had never successfully turned a sphere before, and just recently saw a video posted here (Can never think of the guy's names when I need to!) for a technique to help eyeball a sphere (29% rule) I decided to try that. First two I messed up (skew caught in wormholes and went wandering off the cut) but my third try actually came out pretty decent, though far from perfect. (I used the rest of the blank to try and turn a cup to hold the ball, thinking I'd try making a cup & ball game, unfortunately the stem of the cup tracked right onto a crack in the wood and came apart, which I pretty much expect to happen with these pieces due to aforementioned lightning strike)

Upshot is, even though it is crappy wood, and would never be used for a serious project, crappy wood can still be quite useful for practice sessions! Sphere is about 2 inch diameter.