George Overpeck
03-14-2014, 12:46 AM
284613
Hey all - I have a question about red alder for those of you who have worked with it or similar woods which have a drastic color change from oxidization. I just picked up some roadside chunks around 12" diameter and turned a piece. (first picture shows the color of the wood fresh off the tool + original color, second shows bowl about 15 minutes after roughing)
I tangled with it once before, it took on a pretty nice color within about 5 minutes and retained it during the drying. When it was sanding time I was unhappy to find out that I was removing most of the color, worse yet it took a lot of sanding to get an even appearance.
Some of the sections of the tree have a more solid heart than this one, I could see putting in some work if I could retain the color which I find pretty sharp (it's even redder than the picture makes it look) , if I can't keep the color it will just become fairly plain looking - a lot of sanding for only ok results. Also, if I'm going to write "red alder" on the foot of a bowl I just feel like it should be as red as can be, sans dye.
What do you folks know about holding on to the color on this?
http://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16815 this link to an abstract on how to remove the color (you fools!) and create a cherry substitute indicates that heat, storage time and season all play a role and maybe indicate that the heat of the sanding rather than the removal of the oregonin from the surface causes it to revert. Is it time to start sending out unsanded work? If I must...
Hey all - I have a question about red alder for those of you who have worked with it or similar woods which have a drastic color change from oxidization. I just picked up some roadside chunks around 12" diameter and turned a piece. (first picture shows the color of the wood fresh off the tool + original color, second shows bowl about 15 minutes after roughing)
I tangled with it once before, it took on a pretty nice color within about 5 minutes and retained it during the drying. When it was sanding time I was unhappy to find out that I was removing most of the color, worse yet it took a lot of sanding to get an even appearance.
Some of the sections of the tree have a more solid heart than this one, I could see putting in some work if I could retain the color which I find pretty sharp (it's even redder than the picture makes it look) , if I can't keep the color it will just become fairly plain looking - a lot of sanding for only ok results. Also, if I'm going to write "red alder" on the foot of a bowl I just feel like it should be as red as can be, sans dye.
What do you folks know about holding on to the color on this?
http://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16815 this link to an abstract on how to remove the color (you fools!) and create a cherry substitute indicates that heat, storage time and season all play a role and maybe indicate that the heat of the sanding rather than the removal of the oregonin from the surface causes it to revert. Is it time to start sending out unsanded work? If I must...