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Danish oil, teak oil, mineral oil,
tung oil and even a product called salad bowl finish are also useful
in completing turned wood projects. Most of these 'oils' are so
diluted by commercialism, that it's nearly impossible to find the
'real ones'. There is also a hard compound made from carnauba wax
and diatomaceous earth, which is applied to the spinning piece,
after which a piece of terry cloth is held against the piece. The
heat generated by the friction bonds the residue to the piece, and
produces an adequate finish. It won't stand up to water, but then,
unless you've set your turned bowl on that high-boy in the living
room to impress company, it doesn't need to interact with water,
does it?
WOODS
All this presupposes that any old
hunk of wood, thrown close enough to a lathe, will supernaturally
result in a gallery-quality finished piece. That is almost true,
but impractical. Pressure-treated lumber will always look like pressure-treated
lumber. And a fence post with nails in it will always ruin your
sharp tools.
My favorite turning pieces are those
with imperfections: knots, knot holes, bark inclusions, burls, and
wood-borer tunnels. I find wood with color variations quite attractive.
Box elder, a member of the maple family, is one of my favorite mediums.
Brilliant red streaks are found in the heartwood of the female (not
male, and yes, there is a difference) trees, and make attractive
turnings. Since I have a neighbor with box elder limbs that demand
occasional trimming, supply is not a problem.
Through an innate bargain-hunting
sense, I keep my eyes open for opportunities to obtain free 'inventory'.
(Of course, there is no such thing. Time and/or effort are always
involved, whether or not money is.) I have received a great variety
from some of my customers, including cherry, walnut, locust, orchard
trimmings, dogwood, sassafras, oak, plum burls, holly, and Osage
orange -- the tree that produces those grapefruit-size green things
you see along the road in the autumn. The wood is very hard, like
locust, has distinct color differences between the
sapwood and the heartwood, like locust, but is 'oranger' than locust.
Walnut can produce some truly distinctive turnings. Most people,
who are familiar with walnut furniture, are unaware that walnut
has nearly white sapwood. Woodturning bliss is finding a walnut
burl, with some sapwood, a knothole, and maybe some spalting.
Now that the subject has come up,
spalting is the name for black streaks that run randomly through
some wood. It is produced by micro-organisms that grow in the wood
when it is dead, and in a damp environment (like on a forest floor).
When the wood dries, the organisms die. But, their residue produces
magnificent art, which is exposed when the wood is turned. Spalting
is more prevalent in some woods, such as holly, oak, walnut, birch
and maple, rather than others. The trick with taking advantage of
spalting is to get to the wood before it turns 'punky'. After that,
the wood is unstable, tends to chip apart, even when turned using
properly sharpened tools, and is very porous, making it difficult
to sand, and nearly impossible to finish with any glossy appearance
whatsoever. I turned a dogwood stump a couple of years ago. It had
more empty space than wood, but the solid portion had beautiful
spalting and swirled grain. However, it was 'punky'. (There's that
word again - it means cork-like, unstable, and capable of breaking
apart when mounted on a lathe.) I turned it to about an inch and
a half thickness, then set it aside for several months. Then I located
a substance, similar to turpentine, which saturates wood, then hardens.
I used the whole can on this piece, then turned it to about æ of
an inch thickness. I wasn't nearly as thrilled with the finished
piece as I had expected to be, so I screwed it onto the top of a
stump at my driveway entrance, and it has become a popular resting
stop for robins.
A couple of years ago, a reproduction
of the Kalmar Nyckel, the ship that brought the first Swedes to
America in 1638, was being built in Wilmington, Delaware. By the
time I got there to help 'discard the refuse', I found a six foot
pile of discarded pieces left over after precision milling. I was
able to obtain a
large quantity of purple heart, green heart, hackmentack root, sapodilla,
and some that I haven't even identified. Most of this wood comes
from South America. I'm sure most of it was procured for its specific
qualities in today's ship, since I doubt that very much wood was
imported by the Swedes from South America in 1638. The purple heart
was used to make the rudder. It is so named because it is, in fact,
purple. Though most of this particular supply of wood is 'featureless'
(it was acquired for qualities other than its appearance), it does
have one characteristic that distinguishes it from the wood I gather
locally: it is kiln dried. This means it is ready for turning, since
it has already been relieved of natural stresses. It won't split,
or crack, or warp. Usually. This is a time saver, if a finished
turning is demanded, immediately, and the several-month natural
drying time of 'back yard treasures' is out of the question.
When I collect wood, it is usually
in its natural state, meaning, it is the actual branch, or stump,
or section of log. It still has bark on it. And it often has some
peculiarity, which drew my attention to it. This could be a burl,
spalting, a desirable grain pattern, or simply a species of wood
I've been looking for. Boxwood is exceptionally fascinating. It
has beautiful pale yellow grain, which runs in myriad directions,
and is filled with tiny knots and eyes.
We were in Williamsburg, Virginia
recently, I saw a large boxwood branch lying in the back yard of
a private home. It had either been trimmed, or had broken off in
a winter ice storm. Internally, I whined, like the family dog chained
to the clothes line. I could have knocked on the door, and asked
them if they'd object to my removing some of their refuse. I could
have trimmed the branches off with the ax being used by the colonial
craftsman on the next block, who was trimming lath, with which to
plaster a renovation. I could have used it as a walking stick, as
we hurried to the bus, in the wind and drizzle. I could have hoped
that it wouldn't make us too late to catch the bus, to take us to
the car, to take us to an engagement for which we had 'just enough
time'. But, being the gentleman that I am, I pressed onward, right
after my wife glanced at me, out of the corner of her eye, identified
my dilemma, and emphatically said, "No." It may surprise you, but
most of my successful wood-gathering excursions are done without
the benefit of company.
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