sweet gum gloat

Re: sweet gum gloat

Carole in VA

>Wet gum must be easier on tools than dry gum! My experience is that the dry stuff will dull a saw blade faster than you can blink! I remember my city neighbor trying to split some for firewood one time and it was like trying to split a big eraser. LOL Can't remember what the grain looks like...is it pretty?

Re: sweet gum gloat

Dick Hines

>I like it. The grane is always a mistery until it is turned. Some times there is a lot of heart wood that is a dark brown. This piece I split today has very little brown heart wood.

I will know tomorrow. Going to the mountain hpouse tomorrow morning but will be in the shop tomorrow evening turning wet gum.

Re: sweet gum gloat

Mark Kauder, Phenix City, AL

>I usually tell people that turning fresh cut Sweet Gum is much like turning a potato, fun to turn with great long ribbons of wood comming off your gouge and wet as can be. I have never turned a wetter wood.

HOWEVER, that great wetness leads to a very tough drying process. It distorts tremendously, the 10% wall thickness standard for roughing is sometimes not enough, and it is tough to get dried w/o cracking. There is a local sawmill that is one of the few that actually cuts Sweet gum into lumber. They have a very complicated drying process of Air Drying followed by kiln drying - all with weight on the wood stacks to keep it from warping.

The resulting lumber is sometimes call "Alabama Mahogany". The sapwood was once used in furniture production as a substatute for soft Maple. The Heartwood is a varigated light to medium chocolate brown.

Carol, you are absolutely right about it dulling tools. Though it is not a hard/dense wood, I think that it probably has a high silica/mineral content that dulls tools (gosh, I wish Jon Arno was still alive - a great resource for me).

These bandsawn boxes are made from Sweetgum.

Mark

Re: sweet gum gloat

Don Henthorn

>Neat boxes, Mark.

Re: sweet gum gloat

Carole in VA

>Hmmm..that looks right purdy, Mark! Who woulda thought that old stuff was good for anything. I sure am developing a new appreciation for woods I wouldn't have given you two cents for before I started turning! LOL

Re: sweet gum gloat

Barbara Gill, Remlik VA

>We used Sweet Gum for the wainscoting and casing on our sun porch. I have found that the best way to cut sweet gum for stability is to quartersaw it.

The first time I cut it I cut wide thick planks to air dry. That is what the wainscoting came from. It was so warped that we had to cut the large pieces into the smaller pieces before it could be surfaced.

Often commercially the sap wood is sold as sap gum. I was told that during WWII sweet gum was stained as walnut since so much of the walnut was going for unsticks. I have been in a number of older churches where the pews appeared to be walnut but on closer inspection seemed to be sweet gum.

Re: sweet gum gloat

Dick Hines

>Mark, I have had great success soaking gum in alcohol. I turned a bowl with thick walls and a small bowl hole and have had no trouble with the gum moving after 24 hours in the alcohol. Will post a picture next week.