Andy London
02-21-2005, 9:00 AM
Although I have been turning for many moons, I really only got into it a year ago when my thirteen year old son expressed an interest, so we purchased the equipment and went at it so to speak.
Natural disasters are never a good thing however we took advantage of a hurrican that passed through Halifax and left many old growth trees on the ground many covered in burls providing us access to woods we would not generally be able to buy.
There have been a number of backyard type companies sprint up to mill woods that have fallen around the province and I went to an auction at one two weeks ago, I ended up buying a lift of Curly Yellow Birch planks, I was interested as the pieces were 2 1/4 to 2 3/4" thick, 6 to 12" wide and the chap had partically dried the wood in a kiln.
As I loaded the planks three cought my eye as something was going on in the pieces, dark speckles, it was hard to tell as I didn't have a hand plane and the wood was rough cut. Upon making a few trips back to the shop I decided to plane part of a plank and discovered birdseye's in the Birch. After doing a search on the net, I found there are pieces out there but it's quite rare. In the past I've seen birdseye in Cherry, Lacewood and Zembrano but not birch.
I've been meaning to turn a piece but have been desperate busy, yesterday morning prior to my sons tournament I started a lidded container, being in a rush I did everything backwards and am not all that pleased with the results but just had to see what this would look like.....lot's more to come done properly<G> :rolleyes:
I was thinking on my way to work this morning, it truly is amazing the natural beauty of wood, I've found some stunning pieces in the past year from the dump, side of the road to my own wood pile that in my flat work I would have never paid any attention to. I've even turned some roots that grab your attention.
Thanks for your time, here is a Curly Birdseye Yellow Birch lidded (bowl) container, the transulant rays in the wood is stunning, if I did not know better I would swear it came from a burl.
Andy
http://www.picframer.ca/curlybirdseyebirch2.jpg
Natural disasters are never a good thing however we took advantage of a hurrican that passed through Halifax and left many old growth trees on the ground many covered in burls providing us access to woods we would not generally be able to buy.
There have been a number of backyard type companies sprint up to mill woods that have fallen around the province and I went to an auction at one two weeks ago, I ended up buying a lift of Curly Yellow Birch planks, I was interested as the pieces were 2 1/4 to 2 3/4" thick, 6 to 12" wide and the chap had partically dried the wood in a kiln.
As I loaded the planks three cought my eye as something was going on in the pieces, dark speckles, it was hard to tell as I didn't have a hand plane and the wood was rough cut. Upon making a few trips back to the shop I decided to plane part of a plank and discovered birdseye's in the Birch. After doing a search on the net, I found there are pieces out there but it's quite rare. In the past I've seen birdseye in Cherry, Lacewood and Zembrano but not birch.
I've been meaning to turn a piece but have been desperate busy, yesterday morning prior to my sons tournament I started a lidded container, being in a rush I did everything backwards and am not all that pleased with the results but just had to see what this would look like.....lot's more to come done properly<G> :rolleyes:
I was thinking on my way to work this morning, it truly is amazing the natural beauty of wood, I've found some stunning pieces in the past year from the dump, side of the road to my own wood pile that in my flat work I would have never paid any attention to. I've even turned some roots that grab your attention.
Thanks for your time, here is a Curly Birdseye Yellow Birch lidded (bowl) container, the transulant rays in the wood is stunning, if I did not know better I would swear it came from a burl.
Andy
http://www.picframer.ca/curlybirdseyebirch2.jpg