hardest material??

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RAdams

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I have recently been turning alot of different materials and was curious, what is the hardest material to turn?

I don't mean hard as in like diamonds, I mean hard as in takes the highest skill level.

I thought Ebonite and trustone were tough, so i bought some of each and had no problems. I did later find out that there are much harder trustones to turn than the wild horse jasper i chose.

I have a pen in my gallery that is made from Alternative Amber from exoticblanks. When i asked about this material, I was told that it would be a true test of my skills and abilities. I'm not trying to sound big headed or anything but that material, allthough tricky, left me thirsty for more.

I would really like to know everyones opinion on what material is the toughest to work with, and why.


So far for me, it has been the amber. But i want something more... cultured granite maybe? I actually have a piece of that, and i know it will cut as well!
 
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Have you tried soapstone? I have 2 pieces, thanks to a wonderful member here but I don't have the courage yet to turn it. I heard it was difficult.
 
rjwolfe3 said:
Have you tried soapstone? I have 2 pieces, thanks to a wonderful member here but I don't have the courage yet to turn it. I heard it was difficult.
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Have courage! It's hard and soft in different places and that can make it
more difficult too. But it looks wonderful when it's done. I've got hundreds
of pounds of it, so don't worry about running out. :biggrin:
 
The two most difficult to turn I've run into are alabaster and real ivory. The alabaster is easy to turn but very very fragile and hard on your tools. It has a real tendency to crumble. The ivory is just HARD! Did I mention how hard it is. Hard to turn, hard on tools, hard on your nose, hard, hard, hard.
 
I gave up on some palm, simply harder and more resistant to the tools than I wanted to bother with.
I made an Emperor from some faux ivory (not the popular stuff like CS sells) that was hard-hard-hard. Had to really take my time. Results were worth it. Selling price of pen was $250.00. (and it did sell)
 
I'm turning an Azurite/Malachite Tru-stone blank that's pretty hard. I've also got a Dark Blue Lapis Tru-stone blank that I understand is a bit harder. I'm also turning a coffee bean blank right now--talk about needing a sharp tool and a light touch!
 
snyiper said:
How do you seal Soapstone and how Fragile is it?
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You don't really need to seal it, but a light coating of mineral oil brings out
the color. It will also take a CA finish if you want.
It is fragile .. you're turning stone to a very thin shell. But the thicker it is,
the less fragile.
 
The material I struggled the most with was alligator bone. On the one hand, it was very hard, and hard on the tools, but it still had some punky sections that needed to be filled/stabilized and seemed to soak up a lot of CA in the process.

-Barry
 
I'll go with a grade 8 bolt ,if you are talking turning on a wood lathe, trying I mean making a bottle stopper mandrel.
 
so far for me is a coffee bean blank, by alot!
gonna try a cholla cactus blank and a WW blank tomorrow.

also maple/bloodwood or paduak/holly is difficult in skill b/c of dust causing ugly discoloration
 
jimofsanston said:
I turn soapstone. And found it to be not to hard to turn. It was very soft, you can easily be over turned.
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that would depend on the type, I guess. There's architectural soapstone,
which they use to make things like sinks, countertops, stoves and the like..
and the artistic soapstone, which is much softer and used for carving,
marking pencils and such. I'm sure that would turn much easier than the
architectural stuff.. (which has pockets of hard and soft in the same piece!)
How well does it hold up?
 
Mineralized walurus oosik and mammoth ivory are hard to turn, they want to fall apart as you turn them, sometimes they are like chalk, sometimes very hard, sometimes you find hard and soft in the same piece.

Real malachite (not the turestone variety) is tough to turn; it crumbles and if you inhale the sanding dust you die.

I've been working on fossilized sharks teeth for a few years and haven't had any success yet.
 
I had a lot of trouble turning the pasta blanks. But then El Mostro told me
that the secret is to cast uncooked pasta in the resin. It works much better now.
 
Timarand

In my short career of turning wood, a piece of spalted Timarand that
was given to me. It was mean as heck!
 
Just turned a Black Palm with pearwood segmenting. Very, very, very splintery. Use lots of thin CA as I turned it down then finished it off with a skew. #2 is Ironwood.
 
I just turned a piece of Plutonium Kryptonite. I had to rent a jack hammer to turn that stuff.:eek:
 
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