mpex
Member
I'm having trouble turning a couple Burls. The two that I have tried are Red wood and Coolibah. At least 50% of them crack while turning. When I say crack, I mean a big or small chunk flies off. I had an amazing Coolibah on the lathe yesterday, had turned down the bottom piece and prepped for finish, had almost completely finished the top and was just going back over with a skew and a chunk came flying off.
So my question is, is there anything I can do to help prevent this from happening?
Method: Turn blanks around 1900-2000 rpm with a rougher. Sometimes I start out a bit slower. I try not to turn aggressively, trimming off a small amount of wood with each pass. Once I have the shape right, I use a skew to smooth out any small gouges and to refine the shape and put the right circumference on the ends.
Is it also possible that my tools are not sharp enough? I had them professionally sharpened about 20 pens ago (mix of hard/soft woods.)
Thanks!
So my question is, is there anything I can do to help prevent this from happening?
Method: Turn blanks around 1900-2000 rpm with a rougher. Sometimes I start out a bit slower. I try not to turn aggressively, trimming off a small amount of wood with each pass. Once I have the shape right, I use a skew to smooth out any small gouges and to refine the shape and put the right circumference on the ends.
Is it also possible that my tools are not sharp enough? I had them professionally sharpened about 20 pens ago (mix of hard/soft woods.)
Thanks!