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Would You Turn This?

Will definitely be an art piece unless you do a lot of epoxy work. I've only turned a few pieces of mulberry but my experience and what I'm told is expect a lot of cracks and movement if it was green/wet when turned.
 
Would I turn it? Probably not.

Could I turn it? Yes. I would do it on my CNC mill to minimize any needed sanding. I've used various ways to mechanically stabilize fragile pieces. Bondo auto body filler works well using Saran wrap liner so it doesn't stick to the wood. Also wax granules melted to fill and stabilize.

Why are you turning it? Sometimes pieces like this are shown, my thought is they were done as a personal challenge or to demonstrate the turner's skill. Most everything I turn is utilitarian and if it happens to be attractive that's even better. A bowl with a void in the side wouldn't be utilitarian.
 
Doug Rasmussen said:
Would I turn it? Probably not.

Could I turn it? Yes. I would do it on my CNC mill to minimize any needed sanding. I've used various ways to mechanically stabilize fragile pieces. Bondo auto body filler works well using Saran wrap liner so it doesn't stick to the wood. Also wax granules melted to fill and stabilize.

Why are you turning it? Sometimes pieces like this are shown, my thought is they were done as a personal challenge or to demonstrate the turner's skill. Most everything I turn is utilitarian and if it happens to be attractive that's even better. A bowl with a void in the side wouldn't be utilitarian.
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Definitely for the challenge. I don't do art, per se. Will it be functional with a large void? No, but I'll still like it.
 
probably not but if I had, I’d have used every screw hole in a larger faceplate to minimize the chance of an airborne chunk.
 
Alan Weinberg said:
probably not but if I had, I’d have used every screw hole in a larger faceplate to minimize the chance of an airborne chunk.
Click to expand...

It's the only faceplate I have (I don't use them often). I think I got 5 screws in it. There wasn't any way to position it so that all of the screw holes were over solid wood.
 
I would 100% turn that! Living in a place like where I do, I can't be picky with the wood I can turn, so if I want to turn, I turn sketchy chunks. Along with that, what techniques do you use for turning pieces with voids or that are out of balance? For hollow forms or bowls, do you increase the speed, decrease the speed, or what do you do with your tool to avoid catastrophe? Great Job!
 
Start slow. This is especially important for uneven blanks.

As for turning wood with a lot of voids, the key is in knowing (or accurately guessing) how stable the wood is around the voids. In this case it was pretty stable so there wasn't much risk of it coming apart. The other thing to watch for when turning live edge or wood with voids is to not push the gouge into the wood. If you are pushing forward on the gouge, when you hit air the gouge will go into the void, and then smack the wood on the other side of the void. This happens in small increments, but it's a thing. Try to use as little forward pressure on the gouge as possible. I have to remind myself of this constantly.
 
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