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Dakota burl - sunflower hulls

T

twoodsmith

Joined
Jul 11, 2004
Messages
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Location
Gray, GA
A search showed no matches, so here goes. Have any of y'all tried to turna dakota burl? I bought two seveal yeas ago and just never got around to turning them. Recently a relatively new turner friend of mine, showed me a couple that he tried to turn. He asked me what he was doing wrong. I told him that it looked like he was scraping and using dull tools. He gave me the other 5 pen blanks that he had. I more closely inspected the torn and voided chip outs on his attempts and discovered that the crushed sunflower hulls did not appear to be glued together well. I took the blanks and chose one, laid it on its side on a plastic grocery bag, and thouroughly soaked it with thin ca glue. I soaked it several times ofer a two hour period until it would no longer take any more glue. Then I turned it over and soaked it from the other side. The second side did not appear to take very much glue. Two days later I cut the blank to length, drilled it and soaked the inside hole with thin ca. I filed the inside smooth to take the brass tube, glued it trimmed the ends and turned it using a freshly sharpened 3/4 roughing gouge, then switched to a very sharp skew. Nearing the final diameter and getting close to the bushings, a little chip out became noticable. I marked everything, removed the blanks and soaked the blanks, especially the ends in thin ca and filled the chip out. It seems to me that this is a very costly process in time and material, mostly ca glue. Did we get a bad batch or is this stuff just not worth the trouble? It does not look that good anyway. To me, there are a lot of other materials, including wood that turn so much better and look so much better. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated, Thanks!
 
I got several sheets of it a few years back, mostly for making table tops. Interesting stuff. When turning it, I got powder, not shavings, mostly I think due to the hulls and their orientation. There are no fine particles in the mix to fill the voids, so there are holes that need to be filled. Made by Phenex Co. out of Mankato, MN, and sold as Environ bio composits, they also make paper and straw/grass particle boards. The paper stuff turns nicely, and has almost no voids. They do use a soy based resin so no formaldehyde in it.
robo hippy
 
I have turned several and had no trouble. I did notice that a sharp skew. I think I ordered them from either Craft Supply or Pen State. After turning them, I used a plastic polish finish.

Martha
 
I've done some pens with the blanks from CSUSA and there is some chip out that can be minimized with sharp tools and voids can be easily filled with CA and the dust that comes off the tool.

They're interesting but far from spectacular.
 
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