Bruce Lundgren
07-08-2013, 9:24 PM
I've admired some salt boxes that I've seen turned from olive wood. I bought two blanks about +/- 5X5 at the Tampa symposuim and started turning one last weekend. Moisture content was about 10 percent and I was surprised at how heavy the blank was. It reminded me of my lignum vitae {sp} mallet. I drilled a 5/8 center hole to finished depth.
The rough turning to cylinder went fine and then I started the end grain hollowing. My bowl gouge hardly cut anything so I switched to my Easy Rougher carbide tool taking little bites from the center hole outward. It worked much better but was still slow going. The growth rings are real close together and the wood is very dense. It was very slow going and the deeper I got the more difficult it got. I stopped at about 3 inches deep when I couldn't get the tool rest closer.
Anyone had a similar experience trying to turn olive? I'm almost tempted to wait until I get a hollowing system. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Thanks.
Bruce
The rough turning to cylinder went fine and then I started the end grain hollowing. My bowl gouge hardly cut anything so I switched to my Easy Rougher carbide tool taking little bites from the center hole outward. It worked much better but was still slow going. The growth rings are real close together and the wood is very dense. It was very slow going and the deeper I got the more difficult it got. I stopped at about 3 inches deep when I couldn't get the tool rest closer.
Anyone had a similar experience trying to turn olive? I'm almost tempted to wait until I get a hollowing system. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Thanks.
Bruce