Milling Raw Wood Tutorial

[karlkuehn]

After bringing home that wood from work yesterday, I decided to chronicle my exploits in going from the tree to the lathe.

Here's a link for those that are interested:

http://penblanksandpenkits.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=721731:BlogPost:10911

 

[TheHeretic]

Nice to see someone decided to take picutures of the process. I have done things several times and always forget to take pics to show others.

Nice job.


Dean
Columbus OH

 

[karlkuehn]

yeah, there are so many whacko things I do, it's hard to determine which is good and bad, so I figured I'd get some feedback from people who actually 'count'.

 

[tdmiller10]

I for one appreciate you doing that! I helped my dad trim a sycamore tree last weekend and there were some nice pieces that, once dried out, will make some good turning stock. I do have a question though, do you treat the ends of the blanks with wax or anything to prevent splitting? How long does it usually take the blanks to dry out?

I look forward to any answers (from anyone in the know ) and also to any updates to that blog.

 

[karlkuehn]

I've been having pretty good luck with letting them dry for a while until they get down to 10% moisture, and then anchor sealing the ends to keep them from going bone dry and checking. []

 

[Ligget]

Great work Karl![]

 

[stevers]

Nice job Karl. Thanks for posting it.

 

[tipusnr]

Well done! I have used my power miter in other ways to get pen blanks ready but never even considered this one! The additional idea of a zero clearance backplate was valuable as well.

 

[rhahnfl]

I vote that you make it into a pdf and it gets posted it in the archives. That was a very nice job you did.

 

[karlkuehn]

I need to add a little more to it. I like using backplates when I'm cutting small trim pieces at work (sill returns and such) but for this stuff, at least with my 'fixed' chop saw, I like to have every little 1/4" of blade cut length I can get. It would be a lot safer with at least a chunk of something thin back there. []

I don't have any way to 'pdf'-ify anything. Someone who saw one of my other tutorials mentioned that he could do it for me, but I'll have to track him down. I spose I should finish it first. heh

Thanks for all the kind words and feedback!