Practice wood?

Re: Practice wood?

RonZ

>Pine is good if it doesn't bother you. It is one of the few woods I can't stand. Dried hard woods wood be birch, maple, mahogony, and beech; birch being the most prefered. The idea is a soft fairly easy wood that will be easy enough for you to get the the hang of it and enjoy watching the shavings fly. That way when you go to more difficult woods you'll be ready.

Re: Practice wood?

Jim R

>my suggestion is to laminate some 4/4 stuff. I have done that many times since I do not have access to decent turning stock. For instance. Laminate some of the walnut with the oak. Make the joints vertical instead of horizontal. Re-saw some of either one, combine with thicker pieces, etc. There are lots of combinations and it will give you a good feel for bowl or plate work on a glue block.

Re: Practice wood?

Barbara Gill, Remlik VA

>Carole, for practice I would suggest using green wood. Do you have a chainsaw or know anyone with one? Yellow poplar is a real good wood to practice on. If you can have some small logs cut in half then cut out on bandsaw with flat side down. I use a plywood template lightly nailed to the round bark side of half log to guide the round cut.

Re: Practice wood?

Carole in VA

>Barb, I have a 14" chain saw but I am scared to death of it! LOL I guess I better get over that if I want to learn to turn, huh?

Re: Practice wood?

Dick Hines

>Come on Carole, if you are to become a famous turner you have to get over your fear of chain saws.

LOL!

Frustration is part of the process

Mike Schwing from Md.

>But frustration without perseverance is deadly. Here's a few thoughts on using "practice wood", and they go in all sorts of directions.

It is a very good thing to work with "difficult" woods. The diligence and techniques needed to work them successfully make everything else you work on easier and more successful. But it is frustrating.

I have more often discovered new tool approaches and techniques working with difficult woods than with nice things like cherry or wet poplar. But its good to use easy to turn woods too because it is so much fun, and a very required part of the learning process to every now and then see that you are doing something better (or even well).

Occasionally I will tackle a gnarly piece of oak or even worse, butternut, because I know if I can work them well, I'm almost a pro. I cuss a lot, make my tools extra sharp, and waste a lot of wood, but I'm the better for it.

So I'd say use those nasty woods as practice, but not 100% of the time. It gets too frustrating, but frustration can be the mother of improvement. Using "happy woods" is the reward you get from learning on nasty woods.

I turned with a new turner today, and he commented on how easily I appeared to create a very pleasing profile on a bowl after he had smudged it up a bit. Know what? It was easy, but only because I have put in the time. When I was in his shoes it appeared totally impossible.

I think that was one of the rewards from working so diligently with all sorts of woods. We were turning maple today.

Re: Practice wood?

Don Henthorn Smithville, Texas

>Although pine is not one of my favorite woods, I have seen some very nice things turned from pine. Like Mike says, try them all, you will learn something from each one.

Re: Practice wood?

Barbara Gill, Remlik VA

>Carole, get someone who is at ease and skillful with a chainsaw to work with you. After cutting for awhile, you will feel mch better about using it. If you want to cut small logs in half, you might want to make a jig to hold them.

Re: Practice wood?

Brad Vietje

>I'm with Barbara -- you will enjoy the experience a lot more with green wood (which adheres very well with CA glue). I also agree that Tulip pollar, or Yellow Poplar, is a great wood to play with, probably readily available in your area, and a very pretty wood, too.

Start small, too. If you have access to Bonnie Klein's video series, especially through a club video library, they are very informative, and will help you get comfortable with small bowls in a jiffy.

On another forum, I recently heard of new flat rate shipping boxes from the USPS. I'll check it out, and report back to this forum. If the good news is true, I'll send you some green wood to practice on, and I'll bet we can convince quite a few others to follow suit !

Safe spinning,

Brad Vietje

Thetford, VT

Re: Practice wood?

Lou Krupnick

>Carol-

If your not far from DC & needing small/med turning material, I've got more poplar than I can can use, freshly cut. New turner, Lou K 412-512-3020 Silver Spring, MD

Re: Practice wood?

Carole in VA

>Thanks, Lou. But I am a good distance from you. Salisbury,MD is about as far north as I get and that is a 2 hour round trip. I am just going to have to learn to use that chain saw! LOL