Osage Orange and Phillipine Persimmon Help!

[capcrnch]

I've been having 2 problems with these 2 pieces of wood..

The Osage is cross cut and i'm on my 2nd attempt with this.. Broke both with what seems to be right at the cross cut grain.

The Phillipine Persimmon is cracking right up the middle, top to bottom, straight up the wood, almost right with the grain.

Is this common for these 2 pieces of wood?
It's rare that I have issues with wood breaking while turning, but these 2 are giving me fits.

Any thoughts?
And to answer the obvious questions..
Sharp tools, wood is a good fit on mandrel/bushings, solid drilling, no issues with that.

 

[nativewooder]

Possibly the wood is not dry?

 

[bitshird]

Gary, The Osage I would say it's going to be a bit of a bear being cross cut, but the Persimmon should be no problem unless like was said it wasn't dry, , The Osage is going to take a gentle hand, are you using your woodchuck or a skew on the Osage??? on the persimmon perhaps go got a piece that has the pith running close to the edge or center. Does the crack look like it's opening from the outside inwards or from the holes outward. Once the Osage is rounded it should be good to cut, gust getting it rounded can be he## when it's cross cut. If you're using your Woodchuck it might be time for a new insert or at least an edge change..

 

[capcrnch]

Both the Osage and Persimmon are dry for sure.
I was using a skew on the Osage. It's actually strange, on the 2nd piece, I was almost an inch away from where it separated.

On the Persimmon, it looks like it cracked outward in. These pieces are already rounded, all I had to do was drill and turn.

I'm going to try both pieces again and see what I can do.

 

[1080Wayne]

On cross cut blanks , particularly on ring porous ones such as osage , it is usually a good idea to be liberal with the thin CA while turning .

 

[keithlong]

When I turn cross cut osage orange, I make sure I have a sharp edge, and also when I cut my blanks, I always cut em a little long and stabliize the ends with thin CA, this keeps em from blowing out on the ends. It works well for me, also when I have them turned half way down, I stabilize them with thin CA. Hope this helps.

 

[capcrnch]

Well, persimmon turned out perfect. I'm happy with that one.

The Osage? Blew up like it was a firecracker. I was almost done with it too.
So frustrating.