Turning-> Wood Recomendations

[sbsbw]

Hi, About to start on a turning project and I need some recomendations for wood.

The project is a Coat Rack and is going to be turned in 3 peices.

I may post plans later but for the moment I need some recomdations of wood to use. I would like to use local or semi local wood for this project.

Thanks for the imput-

SBSBW

[Thad Van Gilder]

local...hmmm...
I have turned some impressive stuff from Lilac, poison ivy, and blueberry wood.

aramatic cedar can look cool. I have some spalted maple that I cut a month ago that will look spectacular. 1 piece is figured and spalted!

what kind of local wood are you looking to use?

Thad

[Bruce Hooke]

Hard maple turns very nicely in my experience, but maple is hard and dense so it is more demanding when you get to things like cutting joints. Walnut turns nicely too and is easier overall to work with, but it is not quite as local. A lot depends on what sort of style and look you are after. Basswood turns and works very easily but it's pretty bland looking. Ditto for pine. Neither pine nor basswood will be that good for getting small details and crips edges -- for turnings that call for such, denser woods like hard maple would probably be better.

[Ken Hutchins]

Hard Maple, Black (red) Birch, Yellow Birch, Beech. all good turning woods native to Vt.

[Thad Van Gilder]

Oh, you could use the normal local stuff,too.

don't you have a lot of orchards in vermont? Apple looks great, as well as pear, when turned.

-Thad

[Torna]

Ash turns well (think baseball bats) and is plentiful locally.
Both cherry and walnut turn & work beautifully and we are on the northern fringe of their being local.
As mentioned hard/rock/sugar maple is very hard but beautiful blonde with light grain. It carries detail extremely well. Soft/swamp/red maple isn't nearly as nice.
Another local favorite of mine is beech; works and looks alot like maple - even finer detail. Extremely pretty quartersawn (and turnings always have q-sawn sections).

-leif

[ssor]

butternut should be available in VT. Just go talk to a local sawmill owner. Hickory is pretty and turns well. choose wood from straight grained stock, reaction wood (limb wood or trees that were wind thrown and straightened themselves as they grew) will warp as you remove material. For your project you should avoid soft maple, pine, cedar, willow, etc.

[sbsbw]

Thanks for the input

I'm pretty new to turning but it seems that my instict to stay to hardwood has been confirmed.

I would like to use something that was taken from local forrests, I think that maple and beech are the most interesting to me.

On the subject of beech, anybody know what it would cost to have an 8" beech sawn, or... could i do it with my bandsaw other normal shop tools?

Extremely pretty quartersawn (and turnings always have q-sawn sections). If I sawed up a piece of beech and made the cuts out of the center of the piece would that work?

-sbwbw

[Bruce Hooke]

If a turning (or any piece of wood for that matter) contains the pith (the center of the tree) it is pretty much guaranteed to split. So, as a general rule you have to cut away the pith (unless you are doing something like timber framing where some splitting is often expected).

Short sections of an 8" log could be cut up on a decent bandsaw (with great care). However, it is likely to be tough to horse, say, a 6' long log through your average workshop bandsaw. If the grain is nice a straight you could first split the log into more manageable sections. An 8" log is not going to give you that much wood to work with, especially if you need to cut away the sapwood, but it could give you the long thin pieces you are likely to need for a coat rack.

[imported_Steven Bauer]

I'm pretty new to turning You do know about turning green (unseasoned) wood, right? Green wood turns like butter! You can literally get shavings that are 5 feet long. The thing is that it will then shrink to oval when it does finally dry out. When making bowls I rough them out green with a wall thickness of an inch or so, then let them dry for 6 months or a year, then put them back on the lathe and turn them round again and finish them up. I've had to copy ballusters from an old (1850's) staircase and the old ballusters were distinctly oval - they had been turned while still green!

Here's a bowl turned from kiln dried maple:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid58/ped241a8182a3b02a78b6737293b9c74b/fc62f5b0.jpg

These are green and need to dry out for 6 - 12 months:

http://http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid59/p2cfa2e9a1a6cd30ae9dbd968aac5a3a2/fc5e47c5.jpg

[Mike DeHart]

Wood Central is another board for wood working that I also lurk around. They have a forum dedicated to wood turning, in addition to the general wood working and hand tool specific boards. There are even a couple other names from here that can be found there from time to time.

www.woodcentral.com (http://www.woodcentral.com)

A good place (to which I have no official affiliation.)

[sbsbw]

Ok, I think I like maple,

So a new question will i get in trouble if i used figured wood?

Thanks

-sbsbw

[hoss]

Well at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging a bit. I've been turning wood for almost 40 years. I've turned everything from spalted firewood, to exotic hardwoods which gave me the greatest nose bleed I've ever had. The best domestic wood for turning is yellow birch. Most of the commercially turned stuff you see, pegs etc. are birch. Maple (hard) is good as well. Any closed grain hardwood will turn, with sharp tools. The open grained stuff is a little more difficult. The Oaks take the edge off a tool real quick and require more sanding. As to softwoods they are less good, the grains on White Pine tend to tear. As for the Cedars, they are just too weak. With added bonus of Aromatic Cedar (really not a Cedar but a Juniper) being nasty stuff to breath the dust of. The good news about turning is that anyone can do it. The difference is the amount of sanding needed to make it smooth. A good turner on birch with a skew will not have to sand at all. I hope this helps a bit.

[Bob Smalser]

Pacific Madrone remains my favorite by far, if you can find some.

Denser and finer grained than birch, maple, holly, dogwood or beech. The biggest prblem with it is that it often comes off in one long noodle, blocking your sight line. No sanding required once you master the skew.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5813427/74603585.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5813427/74603599.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5813427/74603604.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5813427/74603784.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/5813427/74603800.jpg

[gert]

green oak.

turn it quickly and get a finish (tung oil) on it even faster. It will never cease to amaze you how it changes as it dries, becomes very "organic"