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What’s on your lathe?

@John Redding Re: Mystery wood

Many species can look similar.

Did that come from a local tree or from some unknown tropical country?
Have any bark, or better, leaves?
Does the wood have a distinctive smell?
Does it fluoresce under UV light (if you have one)?
Look at the end grain with a magnifier - is it ring porous, diffuse, or semi-difuse porous?
Are the earlywood pores filled with tyloses? Large?
Do the latewood pores have a distinctive pattern?
Are the rays prominent without a magnifier?
If you still have an offcut cut a rectangular or square piece, calculate the volume, weigh with gram scale, and determine the density.

These are some of the things that can help narrow down the species, or at least, eliminate some.
The identifying wood article on the Wood Dataabase web site has info, including how to get a free ID from the gov lab.
 
While I live in Charlotte, this piece is one of dozens of turning blanks that I picked up when my FIL passed. He collected kinds of wood from anywhere he could as long as he thought it was interesting, though he didn’t always label it. This one was covered in wax, so my guess is tropical from a retail store and could have been in his shop for years. I’ll have to do a bit of investigating.
 
John Redding said:
While I live in Charlotte, this piece is one of dozens of turning blanks that I picked up when my FIL passed. He collected kinds of wood from anywhere he could as long as he thought it was interesting, though he didn’t always label it. This one was covered in wax, so my guess is tropical from a retail store and could have been in his shop for years. I’ll have to do a bit of investigating.
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Could be anything then! Wish I could drive over and take a look. Save any offcuts, even if small.
 
The aforementioned woodturner who is looking to have a sale stopped by yesterday and gave me some 20tpi chasers, brass, and some mesquite for handles. I made some handles and tried threading. I have never done anything of the sort, and there is definitely nothing else like it. The first try was quina which has terrible interlocked grain, and large pores. The second is mountain mahogany. It was late when I got to it, so I was a little rushed. I found a ring that I had made of MM, so i tried the internal thread. My speed was about 200rpm, I don’t have the hook arm tool, tried using some paragon for lubricating, didn’t really do anything. I don’t think the MM is threaded deep enough, the threads are flat. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open.
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yeah what bill said - Also, you don't WANT pointy threads on wood threaded stuff - sharp points are too fragile - flatter threads are much stronger (and if you look close, even metal screw threads are relatively flat or at least rounded over - no sharp edges - unless freshly cut by a tap or die...and those are often wire brushed to remove the sharp edges) I did my first threads at 16 TPI to make a box - threads came out nicely, but the fit left a bit to be desired... (the real challenge is getting a matching set of male & female threads! Cutting them is relatively easy.)
 
A friend had a large oak come down and asked if I would make a bowl for her. She brought over a couple of pieces and I'm fairly sure that it is white oak. I roughed out a couple of traditional and natural edge bowls to provide some choices.

Edit: I asked and it is Red Oak

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This wood is definitely hard! Then there is the one thing that I don't particularly care for is the amount of tannin in oak!

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I use a scotch brite pad and WD40 to clean it up and then coat the ways with Ballistol oil.
 
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James Seyfried said:
She brought over a couple of pieces and I'm fairly sure that it is white oak.
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The bowl on the left is white oak with a natural edge being the split near a large crotch made in 2003. The bowl on the right is red oak with the bark including likens natural edge made in 2021. The bark on the two families of oak are very different and likens don't appear to grow on the white at least in my neck of the woods. The leaves of the white have rounded lobes, where as the reds have sharp points, so if that tree recently came down you should be able to find some old leaves.
 
Been a little stressed with a hollow form I’m doing some carving and pyro on so I walked away from it for a while and decided turning a basic bowl would help release the stress and I even used the bottom bow gouge😁! Found a piece of maple that I had wrapped up and decided to turn a natural edge since it was cut in the winter. Should finish out 12” x 8-9”.

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My sister thought I needed to make some basket illusion plates/platter. She gets to color I guess so I'm taking it easy for the first one. I told her I'm going to need some wood so we went to the wood guy and that's the result.
 

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Paul Paukstelis said:
Channeling some @Pat Wisniewski today on this bit of American elm. The interior support rings are a continuous spiral, though I wish I would have continued it all the way to middle. Now for some (lots) of cleanup.
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Paul,
We are not that far away from one another. I am quite intrigued with what you are doing.
I’d like to visit and see how you do your magic. And it’d be great to host you here for a day, too.
And yes, the cleanup, filing, sanding takes as long or longer than creating the pieces!
 
Don Wattenhofer said:
To help with the clean up you could try using a down cut router bit that would eliminate a lot of the edge fusizes
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On one of my earlier attempts I tried a compression bit and I didn't really find all that great an improvement and actually got more burning than I did with the upcut (though that could have been related to some slight hardware problems).
I have downcut bits in a few sizes, but not the 1/4".
 
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