Turning soft (coniferous) wood

[Chris Barnett]

Attempted to turn dry cedar (not certain of species) yesterday but had terribly rough surface, even with sharpened tools; using roughing gouge, spindle gouge, and a scraper, all had the same results. Perhaps this wood is not suitable for turning. Attempting to attach photos but cannot upload directly, so doubt they will show up. Another forum I frequent allows direct uploads, so I will need to learn how its done here, or maybe I'm missing something. Don't want to join a spam site just to upload a few pics though.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Chris - I have turned cedar and while the finished product can be beautiful - it can also be a challenge to get there. Only suggestion is extremely sharp tools and very light cuts.

As far as photos - check this out: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=25115

Let me know if you have any questions.

[David Walser]

Chris,

If you'll search the forum, you'll find several pictures of items turned with cedar and other softer woods. You'll see examples of cedar bowls, goblets, and vases. However, to turn these woods successfully (without resort to your 80 grit gouge), your tools need to be extra sharp and your tool presentation needs to be right on. For these reasons, soft woods like pine are sometimes used for practice by beginning turners. If you can get a smooth cut on a piece of Douglas fir, hard maple will be no problem!

As for pictures, you can up load them directly to the forum from your computer. There's a set of instructions on up loading pictures in the FAQs section.

Good luck!

UPDATE: Dad burn it! Steve beat me to it (and said it better than me, too)! Boy that man's quick with a keyboard.

[Chris Barnett]

Yes, I saw that thread but when going to the clip, it asked for a url containing the photos. Well, they are not on the web, but right here in my computer. Just checked Comcast for their convenient photo handling and will not agree to their terms. I can just upload to the pen turning site via a similar method, so I thought perhaps I was missing something. Guess not.
This thread should just be closed I guess. The wood will make nice kindling. Thanks for the info.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Chris...You can upload from your computer. That is how it is normally done. I start a thread or post....type in some verbage...then scroll down to the bottom of the window ....click on "Manage Attachments"....another window pops up....select browse and direct it to the picture on you computer.....then select upload.....the latet version of VBulletin we are using will resize it to fit the parameters set....Close that window after you have uploaded a maximum of 5 photos. Then click Submit reply. DO NOT select Preview or the photos will not be there.

Once the photos are there you can edit your post....select Advanced Edit and insert verbage between photos....

[David Walser]

Make sure your photo is in the proper size and format. For example, the maximum size for a JPEG (or .jpg) photo is 107.8 KB. A PDF (or .pdf) can be 156.3 KB.
Compose the text portion of your message.
Page down to the "Additional Options" section of the page you use to post a message to the forum and click on the "Manage Attachments" button. The "Manage Attachments" button will open a new window. This new window is called, cleverly enough, "Manage Attachments ".
The Manage Attachments window has three sections: "Upload File from your Computer", "Upload File from a URL", and "Attachment Key". The first section is the one you want. The second section is for linking to photos already on the web. The last section tells you what types of files may be uploaded to the forum and what maximum size the files may have.
Click within the text entry section of "Upload File from your Computer" and then click on the "Browse..." button. The Browse button will bring up a dialog box that allows you to find the file of your photo on your computer's hard drive. Once you've located the photo on your hard drive, click on the proper button within the dialog box to add it's location into the text entry field in the "Upload File from your Computer" section of the Manage Attachments window.
Click the "Upload" button within the "Upload File from your Computer" section of the Manage Attachments window.
Repeat steps 5 & 6 until you've added all the photos you want (IIRC, there's a maximum of 4 photos allowed in any one post UPDATE: I didn't recall correctly, the limit is 5 photos), then close the Manage Attachments.
Proof read and post as you normally would.

HTH!

UPDATE: Durn blast it! Now, Ken's beat me to the punch. Worse, like Steve, he said it better, too!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Chris I have turned a lot of cedar and have had fairly good luck with it. Sharp, sharp tools are the key. I have about 8 or 9 more cedar logs to cut up and turn. I love turning cedar and it sure makes the shop smell gooooood.:D

[Chris Barnett]

Here are pics of the 4x4 from which the blank was cut, and blank after turning round. The roughing gouge and bowl gouge were worse than this which was the last tool used, a scraper.

I had tried another piece of coniferous wood from a machine pallet; it turned as smooth as a baby's posterior but was probably somewhat wet.

And thanks so much for the specific guidance on pics. Could not get there through the seaches I had made on attaching pics. Works great! Thought I would try using some of the 4x4 for practice but guess it was meant for kindling. Have a lot of wet wood from several downed trees that I can use instead, but then I have to handle the drying problems. Now where did I put that DNA!

For comparison, the pallet wood to which I referred is also attached (hopefully)

[Steve Schlumpf]

Chris - I have turned a number of candle holders out of red cedar 4x4s, so I know it is possible. After seeing the first photo, I have to wonder about tool rest position and tool presentation. I can see having some tear out but not like that.

[David Walser]

Chris,

Do you know how to use a skew? A sharp skew, using a planing cut, will leave a sooth surface on that cedar with very little, if any, tear out of the grain. This is the type of thing skews were designed for and excel at.

Even without a skew, you should be able to get a much better finish from your spindle roughing gouge. Try the following: Sharpen and hone your spindle roughing gouge. Set your tool rest so the cutting edge of your spindle roughing gouge will be cutting above center (at 10:00 - 11:00, where 9:00 is on center). Turn your lathe on to a comfortable speed. Place you gouge on the tool rest with the bottom of the gouge's U shape centered on the rest and the part of the gouge's bevel closest to the handle resting on the wood. (The tools should NOT be cutting at this point.) Now, slowly raise the tool handle until the cutting edge starts to engage the wood and you are taking a very light cut. Then, roll the tool slightly onto its side (so the flute is pointing into the direction of your cut) and cant the entire tool to about 45 degrees directed into the cut. (If you are cutting to your left, towards the head stock, the tip of the tool should be pointing down an imaginary line that crosses the lathe's bed about 45 degrees from perpendicular.) Done correctly, you should still be taking a light cut. Now slowly slide the tool along the tool rest into the direction of cut while maintaining the cut. This orientation of the tool should produce a "shear cutting" action that will leave a smooth surface.

Please forgive me if I come across as condescending. You may be doing exactly as I suggest -- in which case I've got no clue as to what the problem is. However, the picture of showing torn grain looks exactly like a piece of pine I tried to turn for practice when I came home from my first turning class. I'd been able to leave a clean surface on the alder we'd used in class but I couldn't get an acceptable surface on my practice pine. I was sure it was the pine and swore off that wood forever. I now know better. The pine wasn't the problem. Instead, there were two problems. First, my tools were not sharp (even though I'd just sharpened them on my grinder) and my technique was not refined enough.

Good luck.

[Chris Barnett]

I am now wondering if it is really cedar! It is not like the cedar around here which machines very nicely, and many folks even use it for knife whittling! Perhaps it is something else, but I agree with you, the tearout is very bad. When you used cedar, was it dry? I had adjusted the rest, sharpened the tools and tried all variables. I have never had anything behave like this stuff.
Almost wants me to start a contest to see who can successfully work this stuff :D, and the winner gets all I have...two sticks about three feet long and its all gone, gone, gone...(sigh of relief: need an smilie for that).

[Steve Schlumpf]

Chris - the cedar 4x4s I used were Western Red Cedar. I picked them up from the cut off bin in the local home store (Menards). The wood was pretty dry but I don't remember seeing a stamp on it saying it was kiln dried. It did chip out some - specially when turning it against the grain - but sharp tools and very light cuts overcame those problems.

[Jeff Nicol]

I am now wondering if it is really cedar! It is not like the cedar around here which machines very nicely, and many folks even use it for knife whittling! Perhaps it is something else, but I agree with you, the tearout is very bad. When you used cedar, was it dry? I had adjusted the rest, sharpened the tools and tried all variables. I have never had anything behave like this stuff.
Almost wants me to start a contest to see who can successfully work this stuff :D, and the winner gets all I have...two sticks about three feet long and its all gone, gone, gone...(sigh of relief: need an smilie for that).
Chris, It looks like western white cedar, and buy the way the tear out looks you were doing more scraping than cutting. Cedar is a very brittle wood and if the tool is not shearing the fibers of the grain it will tear some every time. It also tends to tear when you change direction of the cut, like one side of a bead to the other. I would figure out the direction of the wood and try and make you longest turned areas oriented in that direction. Then when you cut in the other direction use a sharp spindle gouge or best to use a skew to shear the wood fibers cleanly. It is hard to explain all that is going on with the wood. It would be nice if you could find someone to show you near by. Most all the cedar I have turned needs some good sanding any way because it tends to get burnished easily from the tools and never all over the completed turning. I think this is because the early and late wood in the grain has such a difference in hardness.

I could ramble on but that is good for now!

Good luck,

Jeff

[Dan Bertenthal]

California redwood has made some really nice lamps for my girlfriend and I. It started as a way to use scrap 2x6's from a neighbors construction project--just laminated 4 of them together--and once we used up all the scraps we were on a roll and wanted to make more for our families so we bought a 6x6 post from the lumber yard which was good for six lamps. (I've kept meaning to post pictures when I finally get around to introducing myself to this forum.)

I found the 3/4" roughing gouge to be ideal for most of the shaping (it's a lot more agile of a tool than I had expected). I've since ordered a 5/8" spindle gouge from Doug which works even better. The large skew left the best finish by far, not surprisingly, but I'm not yet reliable beyond the planing cut. Eventually it will probably be my tool of choice for this work.

Sharp tools, as usual, make all the difference.

Despite everything I've heard about checking, we still learned about it the hard way. Keeping the piece in a plastic bag until finishing with beeswax seemed to resolve the problem.

Kate spent a lot of time experimenting with different ways to apply beeswax. Liberon seemed to be the easiest for the earlier coats, though the solvent was rather nasty. Melting solid wax worked pretty well also, though she found that she needed to be careful not to get lines if she stopped applying the wax at one area and then continued a moment or two later. An unexpected thing was that when we melted the wax, the redwood turned quite red, which didn't really happen with the liberon. We've wondered whether the heat reacts with tannins in the word (or something along those lines).

The best part was shop time with Kate.

[Chris Barnett]

Tried again and started from the begining but started with ultra sharp tools which made a big difference. Thought just off the grinder would be adequate but not nearly sharp enough. This time I ground a new edge, honed with hard stone. That did it, with just a slight sign of tearout. Mostly smooth as a baby. Perhaps approach was also a fault since I went by the book....or uh, your suggestions :D. Thanks. Think I need to go ahead and buy some non-Asian roughing and spindle gouges. Have sufficient good bowl gouges but only the asian othes, including a few skews that are unused so far. Need to get with Doug for that too.

[Al Wasser]

I might be wrong but it sorta looks like Chris has true cedar, not the junipers most folks call cedar. I have not turned the true cedar but working with it I doubt it would turn worth much. I have never seen the junipers cut into 4x4s unless it was a custom order. The true cedar is commonly sold for fencing