I love wood with a story & here's one that I need help with. I call it FIG wood because it was Found In the Gulf of Mexico a little over 30 years ago.
Some of you may remember that truck load of wood that a co-worker gave me about a year ago. This was wood that from his father-in-law's place in Port Arthur, TX. His FIL worked at one of the chemical plants in Port Arthur but was also a wood worker and fisherman. On one of his fishing trips, he and his wife found a huge block of wood floating in the gulf, so they attached a tow line to it and hauled it home. It was so large & heavy that they almost swamped their little boat several times, but they finally managed to get it home.
The block of wood was 8" wide by 3" thick and at least 24 feet long. After letting it dry a while, he used 16' of it to build a full-wall mantle for their house and also used several pieces to build the braces for the mantle. A 3-foot section was left over and was part of the wood that I got last year.
I finally got around to cutting off a couple of bowl blanks from this block and I've turned the bottom & sides of one of those blanks. Here's some pictures of the remaining 20" long block plus some views of the bowl blanks & end grain of the block.
The bowl bottom has been sanded & a coat of Feed 'n' Wax has been applied. The side of the bowl has been sanded, but no finish has yet been applied. I don't have a photo of the shavings, but they are a dark reddish-brown color.
Any suggestions on what this wood might be would be appreciated.
Edgar
Some of you may remember that truck load of wood that a co-worker gave me about a year ago. This was wood that from his father-in-law's place in Port Arthur, TX. His FIL worked at one of the chemical plants in Port Arthur but was also a wood worker and fisherman. On one of his fishing trips, he and his wife found a huge block of wood floating in the gulf, so they attached a tow line to it and hauled it home. It was so large & heavy that they almost swamped their little boat several times, but they finally managed to get it home.
The block of wood was 8" wide by 3" thick and at least 24 feet long. After letting it dry a while, he used 16' of it to build a full-wall mantle for their house and also used several pieces to build the braces for the mantle. A 3-foot section was left over and was part of the wood that I got last year.
I finally got around to cutting off a couple of bowl blanks from this block and I've turned the bottom & sides of one of those blanks. Here's some pictures of the remaining 20" long block plus some views of the bowl blanks & end grain of the block.
The bowl bottom has been sanded & a coat of Feed 'n' Wax has been applied. The side of the bowl has been sanded, but no finish has yet been applied. I don't have a photo of the shavings, but they are a dark reddish-brown color.
Any suggestions on what this wood might be would be appreciated.
Edgar