Hmm... Wenge? Ziricote?Mystery wood - it’s about 6.5” x 4.5”
Hmm... Wenge? Ziricote?Mystery wood - it’s about 6.5” x 4.5”
African Blackwood pedestal ... I can't say that I actually like turning blackwood,
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.
She brought over a couple of pieces and I'm fairly sure that it is white oak.
Wow that Masur Birch looks smooth! Really nice figure too.Black acacia from last night
View attachment 76092
And Masur Birch from this morning
View attachment 76093
Paul,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.
To help with the clean up you could try using a down cut router bit that would eliminate a lot of the edge fusizesChanneling 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.
View attachment 76055
View attachment 76056
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).To help with the clean up you could try using a down cut router bit that would eliminate a lot of the edge fusizes
Stunning! Curious what the wood is!Finished the mystery wood hollow form and forgot to take a picture before parting off. I did save a small offcut and will attempt to identify. This one is now 6.5” wide x 4” deep and 3/16” thick.
One little tip with the bowl. When it is done you don’t want anybody to know how it was held on the lathe. It would be easy to turn the mortise into a foot.
I agree John. Yours does not look like a plain mortise and with all of the detail added the normal person would never know. I ran across one of my first pieces in the house. I turned it over and saw just a plain mortise and could only stand there a cringe.
These pics were in the challenge entry thread but I'm hoping it's not against the law to put them in this "what's on" thread.
This was on my lathe just over a week ago, done at the last minute for the challenge. I was recovering from surgery, finally off the pain meds and started feeling better so I thought, why not, I'll try to scratch out something for the monthly challenge, my first ever I think. Good fun!
I've made plenty of lidded boxes and some long-necked pieces but never combined them. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out how hold the various pieces and turn for the precision needed and what to do in what order. I ended up using multiple chucks and a custom live center point PLUS added support to a too-thin neck. (Mistakes were made.)
The piece is not very practical as a box but perhaps may be a clue to the answer of the age-old question, "How did they ever get that genie into the bottle the first time?"
Made from a Persimmon blank dried for 6 years, very hard, fantastic to turn. Turns like ebony. Oh wait, it IS ebony! "White ebony / American ebony"
Insides smoothed with small, curved hand scrapers and a bit of hand sanding. "Danish" oil finish inside and out - didn't have enough time for my usual procedure so I applied and wiped off several coats over 24 hours. Beall buffed and bit of Renaissance Wax over the oil.
(The lighter ring you can see at the widest diameter is just the way the light caught it the grain - not visible at other angles.)
The stopper is transparent blue acrylic - odd shapes of acrylic can be challenging to hold, easy to turn, very easy to sand and polish.
View attachment 76161
When I get time I hope to do a short write-up with the sketches I used to plan the form and process, some in-progress photos. and a bit about what I learned not to do.And maybe something about working with cast acrylic.
If anyone close wants a piece of dry Persimmon to play with, stop and visit - I've got a little left. Oh, I forgot, anyone in this part of the country probably already has plenty of Persimmon! I once counted maybe 40 on my property, recently took down 4 or 5, and more need to come down. We have both the female and male trees. Bring a chain saw - it's fun to turn green too. Fine grained and slow drying time. Persimmon is mostly sapwood with a jet black pencil-thin heart wood. If cut in the middle of the winter it is sometimes white. Tends to get big grubs under the bark if a log is left on the ground.
Persimmon | The Wood Database (Hardwood)
www.wood-database.com
Rarely, you can find a piece where the black heartwood flares out into the sapwood in places. I kiss the ground when I find that.
Some other variations I've found in Persimmon.
View attachment 76162
JKJ
Fresh piece of cherry.
I didn’t like the long neck on my hollow form I entered in the challenge so off it came. Maybe i can start a bowl that would be a jam chuck and turn a dowel tenon so i can turn it and put a new bead and curve on top. It definitely looks better than that tall thing.
@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.
I’m about 30 minutes from West Penn and bought a couple of burl caps from them. Did they have more of the Kou?The mystery of my “mystery wood” has been solved. Went to the largest exotic lumber dealer in the area (West Penn Hardwoods) with a small piece from parting off and they immediately knew what it was - Cordia subcordata, also known as Kou. It’s a wood indigenous to Hawaii. They also had some, so I bought three 6x6x4 pieces just because I liked it.
I’ll go by and check it out in the next week or two as I need to stop at Klingspor.David - They do have quite a bit and apparently it’s pronounced “koo”. If you go in through the office it’s the second or third row in, all the way down on the right (toward the lumber area) and on the right side of the aisle (facing the lumber area). It’s about an hour from me, so I also stopped at Klingspor for some sand discs I’ve been putting off ordering. John