Tips for Red Palm before I start?

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sschering

sschering

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Joined
Dec 23, 2009
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Location
Eugene, OR
Any tips for turning Red Palm before I start?
I drilled and glued up the blanks yesterday with epoxy. They have had all night to set.

I know after I trim to length I need to soak the ends with thin CA and go slow with a sharp skew.

Any other tips like run down to woodcraft and get a carbide tool? hehe

I was thinking I may take the corners off on the band saw to reduce the chance of a catch early on.

Thanks!
 
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Keep drizzling thin CA as a stabilizer if you are worried about it. Knocking the corners off is a good idea and a sharp skew will get you there better than carbide. Keep working the bushing ends down just ahead of the center of the blank.
 
Does this all also apply to black palm? I received an 18" black palm turning square as a gift, and I have never turned it.
 
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sbwertz said:
Does this all also apply to black palm? I received an 18" black palm turning square as a gift, and I have never turned it.
Click to expand...

I've turned a few bottle stoppers from Black Palm. I didn't do anything special to it. I sharpened my tools and turned. It did take a little longer to turn and a little extra sanding due to the grain but other than that everything else as usual. It comes out really nice.
 
Use a skew, it doesn't like scrapers at all. All palm is like a bundle of hard strings, held in a softer matrix. I'd say the stuff is related to corn, because of the similarity of the stalk structure and the trunk. Don't sand it with really fine grit, and use a sanding block. It's easy to get a wavy feel from sanding away the matrix more than the hard fiber.
 
I did it! Super light passes. fresh edges on all my tools. The palm shaves off like dust.. anything that looks like a chip means it's time to back off. Treat it like a chip prone acrylic blank.

Just to make it worse this is for a Panache. A smooth concave shape with no scraping is a pain to get. Just need to do the finish and I'll post it up.
 
sbwertz said:
Does this all also apply to black palm? I received an 18" black palm turning square as a gift, and I have never turned it.
Click to expand...

I've turned Black Palm without doing anything special to pre-treat it. I have some other type of Palm that was grown in Silicon Valley that's FAR softer (and boring in color/contrast compared to Black Palm)...that stuff is very dusty and takes a lighter touch. But Black Palm turned nicely (sharp tools, light cuts when you get close to final size, don't get crazy aggressive during rough in...normal stuff).
 
Here's the cap.. I can't finish the rest till I can figure out where the nib coupler trim ring ran off to.

Dyed with wiped on blue Aumlite then toned back with WTF. CA finish.
 

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