Does anyone know of a listing of woods used by turners and the relative pros and cons such as source and availability, susceptibility to checks and drying cracks, color, oder, ease of tooling, how does it sand, toxicity and so on? When I see a bowl on the forum made of _______ I'd love to see what ______ is. Now I do know how to look up the technical stuff on the web but I'm talking about some kind of field guide for the turner. I could of used it in Portland!
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Turnable wood field guide?
- Thread starter jdsilwones
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Jonathan, you had the best "field guide" available in Portland..... 1,000 woodturners!
When you see a turning posted made from _______, ask all the questions you want about its properties and turning quirks. We love to share, some of us even love to show off how much we know about the wood we're turning. I'm not one of them, I'm one of the turners asking the questions. Then keep a notebook/file that you can take to the shows and you'll be the one everyone will ask for info.
Ruth
When you see a turning posted made from _______, ask all the questions you want about its properties and turning quirks. We love to share, some of us even love to show off how much we know about the wood we're turning. I'm not one of them, I'm one of the turners asking the questions. Then keep a notebook/file that you can take to the shows and you'll be the one everyone will ask for info.
Ruth
Funny you should ask. I have never found anything that was close to what you are talking about so I made my own.
http://www.distinctiveturnings.com/wiki/tiki-index.php
The kicker is I made it specifically for woods that are common in my area (AZ) so it is not anything that would be usefull to anyone who is not in the South West. It is a work in progress and will continue to grow as I use more local woods or as other turners decide to participate.
My advice is start one your self. If you are a member of a club the wiki format I use enable several people to contribute easily, make it a club project.. I am going to assume thought the pacific northwest will have a lot more variety then we have in the desert so it would probably be quite large.
If you do decide to start one and you want to link our wiki's together I would be game.
http://www.distinctiveturnings.com/wiki/tiki-index.php
The kicker is I made it specifically for woods that are common in my area (AZ) so it is not anything that would be usefull to anyone who is not in the South West. It is a work in progress and will continue to grow as I use more local woods or as other turners decide to participate.
My advice is start one your self. If you are a member of a club the wiki format I use enable several people to contribute easily, make it a club project.. I am going to assume thought the pacific northwest will have a lot more variety then we have in the desert so it would probably be quite large.
If you do decide to start one and you want to link our wiki's together I would be game.
Jonathan,
You might look at a product called the Wood Explorer, at www.thewoodexplorer.com
It is a database on CD, with a supplemental website and forum. It has about 1600 woods in it. It is not a good ID tool, but if you know the wood you will get all the info that is known about it, including its known uses, like woodturning. Alot of the info comes from the US Forest Service Database, but there is quite a bit beyond that as well. I have enjoyed using it. Keep in mind though that I am one of those people who loves references. I have guide books and ID books and whatnot that I rarely use, but I love having them when I want them.
Hope this helps.
Dave
You might look at a product called the Wood Explorer, at www.thewoodexplorer.com
It is a database on CD, with a supplemental website and forum. It has about 1600 woods in it. It is not a good ID tool, but if you know the wood you will get all the info that is known about it, including its known uses, like woodturning. Alot of the info comes from the US Forest Service Database, but there is quite a bit beyond that as well. I have enjoyed using it. Keep in mind though that I am one of those people who loves references. I have guide books and ID books and whatnot that I rarely use, but I love having them when I want them.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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Mike Vickery said:
Mike, that is very cool. What wiki software are you using? I'll probably be doing this for our site, after I finish a ton of other projects
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There's always this. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm Chapter 3, with fig. 3-8. Of course you'd be well advised to look at the entire chapter to see which woods have high tangential/radial shrinkage and ratios. After that, it's control of relative humidity with the penalty of mildew for drying too slow, checking for drying too fast on thick sections.
kengrunke said:Mike, that is very cool. What wiki software are you using? I'll probably be doing this for our site, after I finish a ton of other projects
My hosting company has two options php-wiki and tikiwiki that can be automatically installed. I tried the php-wiki first and did not like it. Currently I am using TikiWiki and am very happy with it.
http://tikiwiki.org/
The book A Guide to Useful Woods of the World Edited by James H. Flynn, and Charles D. Holder is a pretty good source of information. There is also a newer version with more wood. It is extensively cross referenced with common names, leaves and pictures of the wood. It also has descriptions of its use for turning and carpentry.
http://www.forestprod.org/mycart/index.php?categoryID=3
Mark.
http://www.forestprod.org/mycart/index.php?categoryID=3
Mark.
For a handy reference. I keep a copy of "Trees" A guide to familiar American trees in my truck.
It is one of those little Golden Books.
It doesn't have everything in it. But, it has most of the normal variety. It goes by species and then sub-species.
I use it a lot in the forest. It isn't great for landscape/decorative trees as they are usually hybrids.
Good Luck,
---Nailer---
It is one of those little Golden Books.
It doesn't have everything in it. But, it has most of the normal variety. It goes by species and then sub-species.
I use it a lot in the forest. It isn't great for landscape/decorative trees as they are usually hybrids.
Good Luck,
---Nailer---
Thanks everyone for some great advice!
I am fascinated with the wiki approach, is anyone else's gears clicking like mine? A place where a turner could read other's knowledge and experiences with a type of wood and then add his own observations would be a great resource.
I am fascinated with the wiki approach, is anyone else's gears clicking like mine? A place where a turner could read other's knowledge and experiences with a type of wood and then add his own observations would be a great resource.
Part of the reason I started it was so many guides, tree id resources were useless to me in Arizona. Most of the trees we have are not common in the rest of the US and even guides to AZ trees were useless since most of the common species are not native to the US (African Sumac, Indian Rosewood, eucalyptus, ect).jdsilwones said:
If we could get a couple more people to start wiki's about their geographic region ( pacific northwest, midwest, ect) and link them together I think it could really be something. I assume some of the other regions could just link to each others pages for species that grow in multiple regions.
In fact their is plenty of space and bandwith left on my site if anyone want I can make a page for their geographic Region and would be willing to host it on my site.
I have the SoutWest who wants to go next. Contact me is you anyone in serious about makeing a Wiki for their region and either wants to link it or to host it on my site. vickerms at gmail.com