Palm

[PMisiaszek]

I grabbed a small palm log, roughly 8" in diameter, from the grinder-truck. I've seen palm blanks advertised, and I'm wondering if palm blanks must always be stabilized before turning. I'm also wondering if I should crosscut it, cut it on the bias, or lengthwise for the best appearance.

 

[Dario]

If you look at the survey/polls section..there is a post there about the most difficult wood ever turned.

I think a lot of people said... cross-cut palm []

 

[DCBluesman]

It's not that it "must" be stabilized, but it sure helps! If the log is long enough, cut both straight and cross-grain. Very different and very beautiful results can be obtained from both cuts!

 

[Pipes]

I Have turned it twice and I duno if it was the worst or hardest to turn ever but it was so bad I will never forget it :O) BUT it does look good IF you can get it right !!

 

[JimGo]

If you check my album, there's a picture of a palm Havana pen that I made. It was made with an unstabilized blank. Well, more like two unstabilized blanks. One half of one blank exploded on me at some point, but I can't remember if it while drilling (may have over-tightened my vise, IIRC) or turning.

 

[low_48]

I salvaged some palm from our local baseball park. It was basically unuseable. It was more like a corn stalk than wood, nothing like the the red and black palm you can buy. I think species makes the big difference. It may also take a really mature tree to get material that will be hard enough to turn.