Ugh. That's horrible stuff -- brittle, chippy, and tears out.
I just roughed a simple cylinder from a turning square, and I'm already unhappy.
I just got done with some bocote, and that stuff turns like butter and leaves a shiny finish right off the tool. Zebrawood is like turning glued up grass.
I'll never touch this stuff again!
I can already see that I'm going to be doing more sanding than turning!
However it may look when I'm done, I'm already sure it will not have been worth the effort.
Ugh. That's horrible stuff -- brittle, chippy, and tears out.
...
Yikes! Could you have gotten a particularly unruly piece? I've turned quite a bit of Zebrawood/Zebrano and thought it turned easily, cut cleanly, and finished nicely. I always turn dry.
What tools are you using? (And are you sure it's zebrawood?)
The third crop handle from the right is Zebrawood.
I've also turned a bunch of Bocote. I may have some to give away. Last week I turned four little things from Bocote, Olive, and something else I've got to go check on the species. My neck and arms inside me elbows broke out in a bit of a rash, itchy. I suspected the Bocote since it spits finer dust. Does turn nicely, but nothing like Olive. I need to do the "bandaid sensitivity test."
Some wood varieties can vary in hardness depending on the soil and environment it grows in. You run into numerous instances where turners turn the same wood varieties and have completely different experiences when turning the wood. A sharp tool and good tool technique makes a big difference in turning most woods but I have run across a few pieces over the years that would dull a sharp tool quickly and was a challenge from start to finish. Give me a truck load of olive wood any day!
Some wood varieties can vary in hardness depending on the soil and environment it grows in. You run into numerous instances where turners turn the same wood varieties and have completely different experiences when turning the wood. A sharp tool and good tool technique makes a big difference in turning most woods but I have run across a few pieces over the years that would dull a sharp tool quickly and was a challenge from start to finish. Give me a truck load of olive wood any day!
Yes, it's definitely zebrano. Please pardon the technically horrible photo -- my smart device takes seriously lousy pix, but it's my quickest way to get it to my computer.
I made the point about the bocote to show that it's neither my tools nor my technique, which have not changed. I dulled the surface of the bocote off-the-tool finish at 220 in order to remove a few subtle tool marks.
Yes, I've occasionally run across "those" particular pieces of wood that are unruly, to say the least.
Mike's point is well taken. I've had a few stray pieces of red maple (a normally excellent turning wood) that were strangely stringy and couldn't be turned cleanly in either direction, so maybe this is one of "those" pieces. I'll note that one end of this spindle (the end with tighter black lines) is worse (rougher) than the lighter end. Needless to say, I tried cutting in both directions. There were minor differences, but neither direction was "happy" about being cut (with a freshly sharpened 3/4" Henry Taylor SRG). On one end, the quarter grain was the roughest part of the rotation, but on the other end, the quarter grain was smooth. Go figure.
I have a goal for this piece, so I'll just have to learn to live with it, but I'm happy to hear that not all zebrano is so nasty. ...GG
When you started your rant about zebrawood I was sure it was going to be about the smell when cutting it. In the early 1980's, I worked in a furniture mill. The mill owner let us come in on Saturdays to make things for ourselves. A group of us decided to make roll-top desks with classic raised-panel construction. I was responsible for milling and making all the panels.
Anyway, most of the guys wanted their desks out of oak. One wanted his out of zebrawood -- a type of wood I'd never heard of before. I thought I'd gag from the smell when I milled that stock! It smelled like what I imagined the bottom of the monkey cage must smell like at the zoo. It was awful. The only thing worse was the look of the zebra wood desk when it was finished. All that wild grain in the raised panel configuration was enough to make you sea-sick with just one glance. Beautiful wood, wrong application!
I can certainly understand what you're saying about the appearance of that desk.
I could tell even before you finished the sentence that it would cross my eyes! Arghh.
Re the smell. If only I could. I have a history of smeller problems (anosmia for the doctors out there), and I'm having an "episode" right now (been going on for the last 2 months) caused by a cold/flu virus I picked up thanks to Air Canada -- coming home from Quebec for 33 hours, where I boarded 4 flights with 200 of my best friends and only two of them took off. No competition = no service. But I won't get started beyond the part where they put the fuel in the wrong tank. Great country; horrible airline.
You might try some different tools, that's what I do when I get into some areas/wood that are less well behaved. For example, a skew or a Hunter tool if you have one.
I've had many cases of a particular piece of wood that gave me grief with one tool and worked for another or another grind. For example, I have some osage orange that chips badly with nearly any skew when the diameter gets small but turns cleanly with almost anything else. Sometimes a skew with a larger included angle cuts cleaner.
I've never tried it with zebra, but some woods can cut cleaner a lot cleaner if treated with sanding sealer, dry, cut, repeat as needed. I've use thin CA in extreme cases. But I'll be you already tried these things.
Just curious, how big is that piece in the picture? Most of the zebrawood I have has a wide spacing between the dark and lighter figure. If your's is the same scale that piece must be pretty big, or if not, the rings/figure must be far tighter than anything I've ever had. Could it be juvenile wood?
1) You're right about your perception of the size -- it's 14" long and now about 1-3/4" dia., so, yes, the grain is pretty tight. In the areas with densest patterning, the dark lines are only a bit over 1mm apart.
2) Yes, I can try different tools but honestly don't expect a delta cuz I'm very good with the SRG, which has a pretty steep angle grind, and I effectively use it well above center like a curved skew.
3) This was just preliminary roughing/rounding of a "turning square", but I have a habit of practicing "final" cuts even when I rough, so I don't expect this to get much better without some kind of firming aid. My tendency is to use shellac for such things if I don't mind yellowing them, but that's not the case here, so I'll use 50/50 diluted Mylands Sanding Sealer (a quick-drying lacquer, as I'm sure you know). That should help, but it will be a major PITA to wait for that to dry after every cut, even if I only do it when I get close to the final size/shape.
After looking at the picture you posted I will have to ask one question.
Did you notice that the surface was more rough after you cut in one direction than it was after you cut in the other direction?
The reason I ask is that I have noticed over the years on most if not all pieces of wood that the direction of cut made a difference with respect to finished cut quality due to the way the grain was running.
Think of it like what happens when you plane against the grain. The cut is not as smooth if you are cutting against the grain. I always use a skew as my "planing blade" when cutting a cylinder like you show in your photo. I am willing to bet that your "planing blade" will yield a better cut traveling in one direction over the other.
I can always detect a difference in smoothness depending on which direction I am cutting.
>>>3) This was just preliminary roughing/rounding of a "turning square", but I have a habit of practicing "final" cuts even when I rough...
...Mylands Sanding Sealer (a quick-drying lacquer, as I'm sure you know). That should help, but it will be a major PITA to wait for that to dry after every cut, even if I only do it when I get close to the final size/shape.
That's exactly the way I work! (and others, I've discussed this with.)
Unless I'm in a big hurry I make almost every cut a practice cut. I'll swap tools frequently, trying skews with various grinds, SRG, gouges, Hunter carbide. Sometimes I a skew sharpened at a different angle works a lot better than another. Or like Mike mentioned, one direction was better than another. Even when working towards the final shape I might try some different shapes on the way, cutting, for example, some beads or coves then cut those away and continue. Same for bowls and platters, although I sometimes change the speed too (spindles are usually nearly as fast as the lathe will turn.)
As I get closer to the final shape every cut is a finish cut. By the time I get to my "final" finish cut, I know what tool and type of cut works best for that particular piece of wood and that shape. My hands and knees have practiced the motions over and over so the final cut is about the best I'm capable of!
I find lacquer sanding sealer, or even thinned lacquer sanding sealer, dries quicker than the shellac-based sealer. In extreme cases (punky wood, etc) I even sometimes resort to thin CA, either flood the surface or add to problem areas and wipe off immediately. This sets up fast and really locks the fibers together. It can stain some woods, especially if it soaks into end grain, but that's not usually a problem if I wipe it on and feather, especially with figured or spalted wood. It dries quick enough to apply before every pass.
It's one of those things that I do without thinking about it - probably most of us once we figure it out.
I don't remember anyone making that point, but at some point I did recognize that cutting direction could make a difference - like petting a porcupine in the wrong direction.
And it didn't cross my mind to say anything about that since it was so automatic for me - you know, the "if I can do this everyone must be able to" syndrome.
+1 - when running zebra through the planer I sometimes have to be careful of orientation. Run one way gives a perfect surface. Run the other and I get chipout.
I agree with you 100%. I'll go so far as to say "It's ingrained."
I'm fairly ambidextrous, and I generally begin roughing spindles in a direction based on the geometry, but as soon as I get the majority of the corners knocked off, I start going in whichever direction "feels" smoother. For some, even many, pieces of wood, there is little difference, but for others, the "nasty" ones, the difference can be huge.
In this case, it cuts poorly in both directions, but, yes, there is a slightly preferred "downhill" direction that is obvious from looking at the surface grain pattern. But I'm still going to have to try "hardening" it with diluted lacquer when I approach the final size/shape. I haven't actually tried a real skew on it, but the included angle of my SRG cutting edge is exactly equal to the included angle on my Doug Thompson 3/4" skew, and I use it in a similar manner, so I expect to get the same cut if I sharpen it to the same extent (which, honestly, I typically don't -- I don't generally hone the SRG). Ultimately, that's not going to matter here in the end because this piece will have a number of beads and coves that will have to be done with a spindle gouge anyway -- but I'll definitely be using my smallest angle tools -- 'sharpest', in both senses of the word.
I'm a hobby turner, so turning time is fun time, and learning is fun, and beating problems is fun (that's engineer talk), and production, while desirable, is not the point. So pieces may take me a lot longer than they should/could, but that doesn't bother me a bit. It's all part of the game. ...GG
I am also ambidextrous but I am totally ambivalent about it.
I recently have been turning some zebrawood boxes so this discussion caught my attention. When I was roughing the blank I got completely different smoothness results with my spindle roughing gouge depending on the direction in which I was turning.
Seeing this helped me choose which end was up so to speak so that I could get a smoother cut on the large curves.
Sometimes the grain is interlocked as you said and it is danged if you do and danged if you don't.
