First Experience With Mountain Ash

[W.Y.]

When I was in the coffee shop in town this morning an elderly gentleman in our group said he had a couple sticks of mountain ash in the trunk of his car and could I use them for turning.

I told him I sure would like to try out that wood...

This is not the same ash that I was familiar with in the forest when I lived back east. It is mountain ash that has the big clusters of orange berries that make birds drunk later in the fall when the berries start to ferment.
Here are the two pieces he gave me .

.

I sliced the smaller 5.5" one on half length ways on my band saw and made this little 5" bowl . There is enough to make six bowls from that one piece by getting three out of each half .
The other one is a crotch piece . It is bigger in diameter but will probably only get two pieces out of that one but the crotch should have some very nice grain pattern once I get at it.

The tree was supposedly dead for a couple years and was not cut completely down so those pieces are just from the biggest limbs..

That had to be the nicest wood to turn that I have ever run across . It turned and sanded beautifully . Would love to get a truckload of big pieces of that stuff.

The shine on this bowl is only because it was still wet with the first application of Watco oil when I took the picture.

 

[holmqer]

That is some mighty pretty wood, and an excellent job of aligning the grain for maximum effect on the turning!

 

[wdcav1952]

That definintely is a nice piece of ash!!

 

[Fred]

I'll second Cav's posting and add that the "piece of Ash" cetrainly ain't on the fat side!

Defintely a nice bown. Remember to post what you get out of the crotch of the second log. I'll venture to guess that it will be very pretty grain structure!

 

[louisbry]

Nice looking bowl William. Was the log pretty dry? I would be afraid that the bowl would warp without rough turning first and letting it dry for a couple of months.

 

[W.Y.]

Defintely a nice bown. Remember to post what you get out of the crotch of the second log. I'll venture to guess that it will be very pretty grain structure!
__________________
Fred ...

Yes, I am looking forward to seeing how that one looks on the inside.
I am still deciding how to cut it for the best use of making two bowls from it because I can't ell which direction the pith will be on a crotch piece like that.

Nice looking bowl William. Was the log pretty dry? I would be afraid that the bowl would warp without rough turning first and letting it dry for a couple of months.

On green wood I always rough turn to within 10% of final and then final turn when dry.
In this case the tree was dead for a couple of years and although it turned with nice curly shavings like green wood it felt dry. I searched high and low in my shop for my moisture meter and finally found it in the house this evening. I will check the moisture on the wood in the shop tomorrow.
Can't check the moisture of this bowl because it already has Watco oil soaked into it.
It is cold here and even snowed today and we have the wood stove on in the living room. The bowl is sitting on the coffee table not far away. My experience with green wood warping is that if it is going to it will be warped by morning when placed in dry heat like that. . If it doesn't warp by then it will be stable.

 

[Mrs Rojo22]

Nice!

Robin

 

[W.Y.]

OK, I checked the moisture content of that wood this morning and it is 21% so I will be rough turning the rest of it and final turn when dry.


The one I posted the picture of has a slight warp now which is not detectable to the eye but when turning it upside down on a table it does show that it is not completely flat on the rim. Less than 1/32 of an inch high on opposite sides.
I don't expect that one will warp any farther now.

 

[mtgrizzly52]

I am constantly "borrowing" from my neighbors supply of Mtn Ash trees as limbs die and break off. Got a good one last winter, but not nearly as big as the pieces you were given. I have made several small bowls with it, and made an almost neat mushroom on Saturday, until the nut behind the gouge, in front of the lathe got a little aggressive with the stem.....Oh well!

Beautiful bowl, and it also makes some nice pens!

Rick (mtgrizzly52)

 

[bitshird]

Very pretty Bowl, great color and grain.

 

[artme]

Willie O you have done well Great score and a beautiful crisp bowl.

That is a good looking lathe you have. What is it?

 

[KenV]

Nice wood to turn that is very popular with the turners here in Southeast Alaska -- gets to be some nice size with age, then develops rot.

 

[W.Y.]

The bowl at the top of this thread warped ever so slightly . Actually no more than about 1/32 of and inch and I don't expect it will go any farther but I don't like warped bowls so I did a search and found my moisture meter which I thought was lost.
The small log measures 21% moisture inside and the bigger one was 31% .
After lunch I got my chainsaw out and cut the crotch piece in half but my chainsaw bar and chain are both in terrible shape from cutting a lot of cords of firewood and no way will it cut straight through anymore . Will be replacing both parts in the near future.

I took those pieces in the shop and along with the two halves from yesterday I rough turned a few bowls . The crotch piece will be left in basically the same shape as shown except the crack from the crotch will be epoxied in except on its outer edge and that will be left open to show it was indeed a crotch ..
I now have all those pieces soaking in DNA . Will be in the city most of tomorrow and when I get home I will take them out and wrap them with brown paper with a hole in the top and they will be dry and slightly warped and ready for final turning in about two weeks.
I was hoping to get more out of the crotch piece and the smaller log was just a few inches too short to get three out of each half but what the heck . . . . 2 little sticks of wood like that produced a fair amount and the price was right as being free.