Gotta LOVE Free Wood

[William Young]

One of the nicest parts about turning is Free Wood. Once a person starts turning it seems everyone wants to give wood just to take it away and some deliver it right to the house/shop .


From This

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/WillysWoodcrafting/SumacSticks.jpg





To This


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/WillysWoodcrafting/Sumacstickscut.jpg


Back right
The bone dry cherry that I originally thought would be firewood because it had a lot of long lengthwise cracks . I worked around the cracks and salvaged what I could. . 17 pen blanks

Back center.
Juicy green orchard cherry wood . 14 pen blanks and one nice piece of crotch wood for a special turning

Front Right .
34 pieces of stag-horn sumac . The natural green coloring does not show up near as nice in the picture as it actually is. 34 pen blanks.

Left side.
Various sizes of bottle stopper blanks (14 pieces) and one nice piece of crotch wood.

I cut all the pen blanks oversize at 1" x 1" x 6" to allow for any shrinkage or twisting/warping. I will now seal all the ends with anchor seal and sticker them to dry in my shop. Should make some great turning in about a year. Then I will trim them all down to 3/4" x 3/4" x 5".
The dry cherry is ready to turn now but I still have a bunch of dry cherry burl that someone gave me so I will use that up first because it has nicer grain pattern than the 17 pieces shown here.
W.Y.

[GrayBeard Phil]

W.Y.

That looks like the fruit wood from a true cherry tree. That should be different (maybe a lot different) from we normally call cherry wood from the woods on the east coast.

I heard that the fruit wood cherry is hard like all fruit woods due to stress of a heavy crop of fruit each year.

Not a turner, but do let us now how it turned. My un-educated guess is it might need a sharp tool to prevent tear-out if turned dry.

Phil

[William Young]

Phil;
I live in the mountains overlooking a fruit belt of orchards and agricultural land down in the valley which we call the "flats" between the two ranges of mountains.
Yes all the fruit woods like apple, pear . peach , cherry etc are very unlike the big cherry trees (and lombardi pear) (sp) down in USA where there is actual lumber in them. Fruitwood trees never get big enough to ever see a sawmill and the wood is one of the worst to work with. Because of stress's due to fruit bearing it is OK for small things like pens but for larger things like bowls it will warp and twist and crack almost every time.
The orchard cherry wood isn't so bad to turn when dry as apple wood is. Some species of apple wood is like turning concrete when it is fully dried.
The only reason I use fruitwoods sometimes is because it is free and because due to all the pruning every year there is nice grain patterns especially in the crotch wood.
W.Y.

[William Young]

I got busy at other things and *almost* forgot to seal the ends of these in time. Just after 24 hours being cut into green blanks the ends started to check ever so slightly. So I got right at it and sealed them all with anchorseal wax emulsion and stickered them for drying.
The white (or green on the sumac) are areas where the sealer is not quite dry yet. When totally dry it is just clear and shiny.

Now I have to be patient and wait for them to dry because that sumac will make some awsome looking pens and the cherry ?well one never knows what is going to happen to orchard cherry while it is drying.
W.Y.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1620/1718813/3307381/251124473.jpg