robutacion
Member
Hi peoples,
I just wanted to show you all, a piece of green Cherry Plum that I rough turned last nigh, after processing the whole messy trunk (multiple attached trunks), a few days ago.
There were 3 round bowl blanks I manage to process from the damn thing, in between Termites and all sorts of other wood (but not all) eating creatures...!
Anyone that processed green fruit trees will know that, they crack very fast and a lot, in within hours from exposure to air, some woods are worse than others, this Cherry Plum was certainly a "nasty" one.
Within 1 hour from cutting these blanks round, I had surface cracks developing, off-course, a lot of that is due to the high temps we are experiencing at the moment but, the day I process them, the temps were just about 30°C.
Most of the wood I took home to process, was made into pen blanks (some really amazing grains and colours...!), cut, sliced, ripped and strapped immediately to void then becoming all banana shape blanks so, will be interesting to see how many of the hundreds I made, will be usable...!
As for the 3 round blanks, I only had one person in mind, and that was my friend Bob Wemm from the Woop-Woop land (well, almost) in WA.
He is my best customer for this type of blanks so, I make sure I make something for him from every wood I get. I was quick in taking the pics and send them to him, by them I had the blanks coated with a very thick coat of wax, all around, that seemed to give me/us some extra time but we needed to be quick as those blanks would self destroy if not turned very soon.
Bob was quick on his selection and 2 were his preference, that suited me right as I wanted 1 for myself, I wasn't going to miss out on the pleasure to turn a nice wood to work with when green, with the added fact that, the fruity smell was just too inviting so, I got the 2 in a cool place waiting for today (Wednesday 2-1-13), the first day of Posting since last Thursday, and put mine on the lathe, last Monday evening..!
I wasn't able to touch it until the next day (evening) so yesterday, very late at night (about 10:00pm) and with the temps a lot more pleasant, I took the blank for a "spin". It was easy peazy going through that wet and soft wood, while I was enjoying the smells produce and they were quite strong so, after working around some flaws that endup determining its shape (as usual...!) I left it with about 1" or a little less, all around.
After that, a good soaking coat with the usual Fungishield and let it to rest until this morning and before it got too hot again, I gave it another good soak and took some pics. By then, the wife had already left to the post office with the 2 blanks for Bob...!:wink::biggrin:
I'm not too comfortable with the amount of time that will take to reach my friend Bob (about 1 week), particularly with the hot temps we are experiencing, I'm hopping that they get to Bob before any major crack develops and spoil the blank(s)...!
For now, mine is "safe(er)", I may give it another coat later today before I take if off the chuck and put it to dry in a drying rack, with the Summer just starting, I would expect this piece to be ready for finishing in about 3 months, with cold temps. 6 months would be the norm.
Is it going to survive...??? I do hope so, I've done all I could with what I've got, for now, I will update some time in the near future.
As for Bob, hold on your horse's mate, they are coming...!
Cheers
George
I just wanted to show you all, a piece of green Cherry Plum that I rough turned last nigh, after processing the whole messy trunk (multiple attached trunks), a few days ago.
There were 3 round bowl blanks I manage to process from the damn thing, in between Termites and all sorts of other wood (but not all) eating creatures...!
Anyone that processed green fruit trees will know that, they crack very fast and a lot, in within hours from exposure to air, some woods are worse than others, this Cherry Plum was certainly a "nasty" one.
Within 1 hour from cutting these blanks round, I had surface cracks developing, off-course, a lot of that is due to the high temps we are experiencing at the moment but, the day I process them, the temps were just about 30°C.
Most of the wood I took home to process, was made into pen blanks (some really amazing grains and colours...!), cut, sliced, ripped and strapped immediately to void then becoming all banana shape blanks so, will be interesting to see how many of the hundreds I made, will be usable...!
As for the 3 round blanks, I only had one person in mind, and that was my friend Bob Wemm from the Woop-Woop land (well, almost) in WA.
He is my best customer for this type of blanks so, I make sure I make something for him from every wood I get. I was quick in taking the pics and send them to him, by them I had the blanks coated with a very thick coat of wax, all around, that seemed to give me/us some extra time but we needed to be quick as those blanks would self destroy if not turned very soon.
Bob was quick on his selection and 2 were his preference, that suited me right as I wanted 1 for myself, I wasn't going to miss out on the pleasure to turn a nice wood to work with when green, with the added fact that, the fruity smell was just too inviting so, I got the 2 in a cool place waiting for today (Wednesday 2-1-13), the first day of Posting since last Thursday, and put mine on the lathe, last Monday evening..!
I wasn't able to touch it until the next day (evening) so yesterday, very late at night (about 10:00pm) and with the temps a lot more pleasant, I took the blank for a "spin". It was easy peazy going through that wet and soft wood, while I was enjoying the smells produce and they were quite strong so, after working around some flaws that endup determining its shape (as usual...!) I left it with about 1" or a little less, all around.
After that, a good soaking coat with the usual Fungishield and let it to rest until this morning and before it got too hot again, I gave it another good soak and took some pics. By then, the wife had already left to the post office with the 2 blanks for Bob...!:wink::biggrin:
I'm not too comfortable with the amount of time that will take to reach my friend Bob (about 1 week), particularly with the hot temps we are experiencing, I'm hopping that they get to Bob before any major crack develops and spoil the blank(s)...!
For now, mine is "safe(er)", I may give it another coat later today before I take if off the chuck and put it to dry in a drying rack, with the Summer just starting, I would expect this piece to be ready for finishing in about 3 months, with cold temps. 6 months would be the norm.
Is it going to survive...??? I do hope so, I've done all I could with what I've got, for now, I will update some time in the near future.
As for Bob, hold on your horse's mate, they are coming...!
Cheers
George
