Shavings - Rough Turning Pohutukawa
By Ian Outshoorn on February 5th, 2012
It's been awhile since the last post. Been really busy at work. Managed to get into the shop this afternoon for about three hours. Amazing how much shavings is generated. I give them away for garden mulch.
The main weapon that I use is the Woodcut 16mm bowl gouge with swept back wings. The handle is the ER32mm Kelton Handle. This handle takes care of a lot of the vibration and allows me to really hog wood off in a hurry.
These blanks are Pohutukawa, a beautiful native tree to New Zealand. I have rough turned them to about 25mm. Then I coat them with a wax emulsion on the outside of the bowl only. The water can escape the wood from the inside surface only, slowing the process down. This hopefully means that when dry there are no cracks. By stacking them with Sticker sticks, air is able to circulate around the blanks, ensuring they dry evenly. I would expect to be able to finish this lot in around 10 months
The lump on the right weighs about 10kg's as it is still quite wet. I should be able to get a nice bowl from that one next time. Most of today's effort was turning Platters, as I don't have many of these in stock.