Turning Cross Cut Olivewood

[TonyL]

Any one ever try this (I guess it is possible to turn cross-cut anything)? If so, were the results good?

I bought a small cutting board from Marshalls (more like a small paddle). Anyway, I thought I would cross-cut the board into blanks.

The label say Italian Olive wood. For the sake of my question, let's not worry about what type of OL, whether it was labeled correctly (it looks like OL to me) , whether the tree was felled humanely, etc..

Just a simple question...

Thanks for reading any sharing your experiences.

 

[mmayo]

I have cross cut many species of wood including olive wood. Get a feel for a cross cut wood with light cuts, ESPECIALLY at the start or big chunks could fly. Once round safely turn the edges faster than the rest. Use a skew at the end.

Best of luck and enjoy the smell.

 

[TonyL]

I have cross cut many species of wood including olive wood. Get a feel for a cross cut wood with light cuts, ESPECIALLY at the start or big chunks could fly. Once round safely turn the edges faster than the rest. Use a skew at the end.

Best of luck and enjoy the smell.

Excellent. Thank you. Question answered! Going to give one a shot tomorrow. Thanks again!

 

[Charlie_W]

Tony, With any crossgrain blank, I would strongly suggest rounding the corners off first with a disc or belt sander. Do the same on the ends of the blank. You can insert the bushing and draw a circle on the end so you can see how much you can take off.
As Mark says...light cuts are key. I would use either a spindle gouge, bowl gouge or more preferably a skew...all in a slicing cut.
Good luck!

 

[jttheclockman]

Crosscut will turn if you have a good feel for your tools and they are sharp. As with any blanks always start from the ends and work toward the center. Nice and easy. I would start with a round cutter carbide and finish with a skew as I do most my blanks these days. yes it would be a good idea to knock off corners if you do not feel comfortable turning square stock to round. good luck.

 

[robutacion]

Hi Tony,

You probably would prefer that I don't comment on anything Olivewood related from your initial comments I could see that you were trying to prevent any comments involving the origin of the wood and quite honestly I don't think you need to be worried about me spitting the dummy and taking the issue in a totally different direction than intended, I have as you and many know, very CLEAR views regarding anything thing Olive wood, regardless if Bow, Italian, Australian and any other country origin but your question has nothing to do with the wood origin, in a way I thought that you only like to work with Bow but is nothing wrong with Italian Olive wood, in fact, most of the artifacts/utensils on sale made of Olive wood all around the world come from Italy and I have to say, I've seen some stunning Italian Olive wood matching the best I ever got my hand into.

Regarding your question and despite the fact that you already said that you had your question answered, I would like to add a few bits more of info that you may find helpful or maybe not, either way, others may appreciate the info.

In my pen blanks processing years, I have almost tried every single wood species I represent/sell cut in cross cut including Olive wood and I found that it's workability, strength and stability depend upon a few factors, one of which is crucial to a pen blank size cut in such way and that is, how oily the wood is and from where the blank was cut from. The most fragile on Olive wood or in the majority of wood species cut that way is when the blank was cut from a fairly small diameter log/limb (up to 6") and the middle of the blank touches the pith line, most of those blanks will snap fairly easily at the point where the grains go in different directions, if you know what I mean, however, I have also to say that most of the best looking cross cut blanks are cut that way, something that I do deliberately in most of my cross cut blanks.

I don't know the size of this Italian Olive board you got nor the wood grain it contains, a pic would help significantly, hopefully, the board has wide grain making it less fragile to cross cut. Other members have mentioned some ways to prepare the blank for turning, from removing corners to sanding, etc., those actions sure will help prevent snapping but there is also one other area that many folks trying to turn a pen from a cross cut blanks have problems with is with the drilling where the blanks breaks apart from the drill bit pressure, I suggest that some preparation before drilling will remove the risk of destroying the blank and for that, I suggest that the blank is supported from the 4 sides with some sacrificial pieces of wood, plywood or other firm material glued for strength, others may consider using tape and wrap the blank around with it but in my experience, even the strongest of tapes will alow some movement if the drill grabs the wood, if not looking cracked that may be deceiving and hairline cracks on a cross cut blank will almost certainly result in a blown-up blank when on the lathe unless the tube glue-up was done with a strong glue supporting the wood all around the tube and the glue is dry/set.

I have also often suggested the use of the "flap disk" for fragile cross cut blanks but many folks don't like or think that procedure should not be used for wood turning, I'm not here to discuss if I agree with them or not but I and many others that tried this system can guarantee great success.

Looking forward to seeing what you endup with.
Best of luck,

Cheers
George

 

[1080Wayne]

Totally agree with George on gluing sacrificial material to the sides of cross-cut blanks to reduce drilling breakouts . Not essential on all woods but until you become familiar with the characteristics of each , a wise precaution . On any I`m unsure of , I will apply thin CA to all 4 sides before gluing on other material . I put the CA on any ring porous wood .

When cutting cross cut blanks from small diameter logs that aren`t dry , I cut with the pith centered in the blank , rather than touching one side at the middle as George mentions . That usually stops the blank from curving and possibly breaking as it dries . CA when dry . The world will not end because pith has been used . It often adds a bit of different colour to the blank .

 

[duncsuss]

Tony,

I'm not sure if you've ever ventured into the world of bowl turning, but what you propose is fundamentally doing that since the wood grain will no longer be parallel to the axis of rotation.

There is one simple guideline when turning cross grain pieces: cut from the smaller diameter towards the larger diameter. This is to ensure the wood fibres you are cutting through have support from the fibres behind them -- it greatly reduces the chance of pieces of wood splintering off your blank.

With pens this translates to cutting into the end, not the long side, of the blank and pushing your tool parallel to the brass tube, rather than pushing your tool towards the brass tube.

 

[Darrin]

Cross cut turnings are approachable like any other type. Light cuts all the way with sharp tools and take your time. Look forward to seeing it!

 

[TonyL]

Thank you all (and George, I look forward to your comments), I am going to finish my morning coffee and head downstairs to my shop shortly. I would have never taken as many precautions beyond the sharp tools. skew, and light cuts; I am glad I asked. Thank you all again!

Here's the board ($8.00), my wife spotted it.

The square portion is a little over 5" x 3.5". I thought it would be good for some single barrel 3/8: or 8mm pens.

 

[MRDucks2]

While this may be a little late for trial on the cutting board, I have found another item I didn't see mentioned (though it may have been) that came into play with my cross cutting experiments. Angle of the cut.

cutting perpendicular to the grain has not only shown a higher difficulty in turning for me, but tends to produce results of less quality.

cutting at 45 degrees is pretty stable but the end result as far as look goes varies a lot from blank to blanks among different boards.

A 30 degree angle seems to be producing more eye-appeal while maintaining a higher level of wood integrity and better turn-ability for me.

 

[monophoto]

I don't make many kit pens, but I have done quite a few '12 cent' - essentially, a thin spindle turning with a long bore that holds an inexpensive BIC refill. These are fun to make, great for building skill and learning how to drill deep holes on the lathe, and are wonderful gifts for occasional friends such as restaurant waitstaff, store clerks, etc.

I've done a few where the grain of the timber was perpendicular to the axis of the pen. As others have noted, that's a more challenging way to turn, and really is good practice in tool control. Sharp tools are essential.

But one thing to be aware of - the strength of a spindle turning is dependent on several factors, one of which is the direction of the grain. Strength is greatest when the grain in the wood is parallel with the axis of the spindle; conversely, when the grain direction is across the spindle (at or near perpendicular to the axis), the turning will be weak. It is very easy for a thin spindle to snap along the grain line if the grain is not aligned with the axis of the spindle.

With kit pens, this is probably less of a concern because the brass tube reinforces the body of the spindle. But it is a real issue if there is no tube.

 

[Gary Beasley]

I have dealt with some difficult cross cuts on Jobillo and found I improved my sucess rate dramatically by using negative rake with a skew while turning. Nowadays you can get negative rake carbide insert which can make life way easier. My theory is the negative rake resists getting under the edge of the grain and peeling chunks, instead it pushes it back towards the tube while cutting. Combine that with serious work on the glueup and you should be good. BTW the Jobillo had some fine catseye chatoyance cut crossgrain, I wouldnt be surprised to see as good with olive wood.

 

[robutacion]

Thank you all (and George, I look forward to your comments), I am going to finish my morning coffee and head downstairs to my shop shortly. I would have never taken as many precautions beyond the sharp tools. skew, and light cuts; I am glad I asked. Thank you all again!

Here's the board ($8.00), my wife spotted it.

The square portion is a little over 5" x 3.5". I thought it would be good for some single barrel 3/8: or 8mm pens.

View attachment 229964

Tony,

That board is exactly what I was hoping you had, wide grain and not heavily oily, you have enough to cut some cross and regular (with the grain) blanks particularly if you are into single barrel pens.

I recognised the card that is part of the Olive wood board, a few years back the main boss of that company has sent me an offer to have his items sold by me on my web-store and anywhere else I would see fit, he sent me pics of the factory, the workers and off-course his "stash" of Olive logs and while I have had wood from 9 large old Olive trees stored in my storage paddock, this guy was big and his yard humongous, I couldn't help myself but having my jaw dropped at ground level, unfortunately, I was not the ideal seller he was after, he wouldn't sell his logs or boards it all had to be processed at his factory and that was not for me but, credit should go where it deserves, his wood was tops and the items they were making were also top-notch but I never had the required money to invest particularly in chopping boards and other flat work we produced where I could re-cut for my use type, shame, really...!

Cheers
George

 

[bioguy]

I've been buying these boards for years and have had no difficulty turning slimlines from them. One board goes a long way.


Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app

 

[eharri446]

I made 8 pens for my son's grooms men out of diagonally cut olive wood that I got from a Marshall's olive wood paddle. They were about a 15 degree angle off of direction of the tube. I had no issues what so ever turning them I used a round carbide tool to turn then down to rough size then used abranet to take them to finish dimension. One thing I will mention is that the cutting boards have been rubbed with either mineral oil or olive oil to keep them from frying out. By the time you are turned down for a pen blank the oil soaked wood has been removed. I have finished with both CA and with Doctors Pen Finish. Make sure that you have your dust collector system on otherwise you will be tracking olive wood all over your shop and the house.