Today's Project

[David Delo]

Once the neighbors wake up, going to see what damage I might be able to do today with this sycamore 1/2 log. 18.5" wide x 9" thick.
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[Al Launier]

Curious. Are you a turner? Little heart wood, much sap wood. Are you going to utilize both?

[Bill Bukovec]

How do you like working with sycamore? Somebody told me it's hard to dry out. His words were, " It wouldn't burn in hell."

[daryl moses]

Can't wait to see what you get out of that one David.
I love turning Sycamore, one of my faves!!!

[John K Jordan]

Once the neighbors wake up, going to see what damage I might be able to do today with this sycamore 1/2 log. 18.5" wide x 9" thick.


Nice! Sycamore is great turning wood, strong, very fine grain. It always has interesting ray fleck. I've only turned the sap wood but I understand the heart wood is good too. Since I turn dry wood I cut logs like this mostly into spindle and box sizes (1x1 to 4x4 and larger), wax, then let it air dry the same as other woods. I've never tried face turning it.

Here's the wood database article on Sycamore if you haven't seen it.
http://www.wood-database.com/sycamore/

I see they say Sycamore is sometimes called Lacewood.

JKJ

[Thomas Canfield]

Looks like a nice natural edge tray/bowl about 18"L x 12-14"W x 5-6"H. That is a favorite section for me to make a mount for faceplate on bark side using Forstner bit and cutoff the extreme points some with either chainsaw or bandsaw. Makes a nice piece for serving with oil finish.

[Reed Gray]

To get the rays to show, and they can be spectacular, you need to quarter saw the bowl blanks, so natural edge bowls will show the flecking very well, but if you do standard bowl orientation, sycamore can be very plain, or should I say plane (as in plane tree if you didn't get that one...). A platter or two would look really nice also.

robo hippy

[Toby Bouder]

Here's a plate that shows the grain pattern pretty well.

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[Prashun Patel]

I am reminded of the difference between good taste in turning vs flat work. In the flat world, such a platter would be chided for one not have provided good grain match. In the turning world, IMHO, the opposite is true: it is precisely the contrast of the grain that provides the challenge in turning, presenting and finishing the piece. In one world, the it's contrast that is genius; in the other, it's harmony that reigns supreme. I am fascinated by that dichotomy. Many will think I'm waxing ridiculous, but a few bee people (hat tip to Blind Melon) will know exactly what I'm talking about.

[Toby Bouder]

I am reminded of the difference between good taste in turning vs flat work. In the flat world, such a platter would be chided for one not have provided good grain match. In the turning world, IMHO, the opposite is true: it is precisely the contrast of the grain that provides the challenge in presenting and finishing the piece. I am fascinated by that dichotomy. Many will think I'm waxing ridiculous, but a few bee people (bat tip to Blind Melon) will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Prashun, this is not a glue up, it is a solid piece. If you look closely you can see the continuation of the grain from the sap wood to the heart wood. The straight line of the change from heart to sap wood makes it appear to be two pieces of wood. I'm glad you like it.

[David Delo]

Well.............what a day. Knew this was going to be heavy duty project but holy mackerel, lugging this blank around and getting it between centers, getting in the chuck etc. etc. has just plain wore me out.

Not a newbie to coring but 1st time using the Oneway Easy Core. I have a couple slugs of cherry burl that I want to get to but didn't want to use those as the guinea pigs so wanted to practice on something else. Did think hard about doing it natural edge but decided just to do traditional for this first time use.

Started out with centerline offset towards me with what would have given me 1 1/2 thick bottom. As you'll see in the pics, the small bowl snapped off. Don't know exactly what happen, if I had the support knife positioned wrong or if the clamp block wasn't tight enough and moved or what. Had to remount in the chuck because it shifted slightly and moved the cutter back to centerline and completed the next 2 cores without incident.

Not enough experience with this rig yet to say better, worse or the same with the McNaughton. Does seem to be more fumbling around adjusting the support & cutter arm positioning but I suppose that will get better with usage. Do like the results of #2 & #3 bowls though. Came out perfect inside and out. Since I moved centerline for the big bowl, it came out with a thicker bottom than I wanted so I'll probably remount that one in a day or two after I recover from today's activities.

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[John K Jordan]

he straight line of the change from heart to sap wood makes it appear to be two pieces of wood.

And that line is not even straight. Very nice example of ray fleck!

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JKJ

[Prashun Patel]

Yes I know its a solid piece.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Sycamore is a very nice turning wood, similar to but a bit softer than hard Maple in my experience, the ray fleck is nice but shows only on a narrow plane when quarter sawn/cut, the wood has often a very nice pink coloration

Background is Sycamore, the only picture I have from that piece of wood
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The small goblet is showing the fleck as it is turned in the direction square to the grain.
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This piece has a thin wide rim that shows the fleck on one side and then disappears almost instantaneously.
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but other than the coloration it is a quite plain wood.
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The Plane tree Robo refers to, is the Hybrid that the English got when cross-breeding the European mainland Platanus orientalis and the N.American Platanus occidentalis, witch has normally single fruit balls, where the European one has normally 2 or 3 or sometimes more fruits hanging in a cluster.

Then to make things even more confusing, they call a Maple tree a Sycamore :eek:, anyway if not planted and growing in he wild over here, it will be a Sycamore (Not the English kind nor a Plane tree:rolleyes:).

[Joe Shanaphy]

I turned a thin walled Sycamore bowl from a green log that I reversed onto a bowl chuck. I left it in the chuck, tightening ever so slightly every day for a couple of weeks and ended up with a really nice wavy edge. It was a very well received bowl and I wish I had kept pictures!

[David Delo]

Even though it's a common timber around here I've only worked it wet one other time. These 2 pieces were turned within hours of the tree coming down. Water spray all over the place, river of water running down the gouge flute, pretty cool experience. The OP pic was from a log cut in August so it wasn't quite as wet but still quite nice to work with. The NE piece came from the raw piece in the first piece.
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[daryl moses]

Great looking NE bowl David, the wall thickness looks even all the way around which is difficult for me.
Question regarding your original post...........did you use the #1,2, and 3 knives when you cored out the blank? I recently purchased the Oneway coring rig myself. But I only purchased the #2 and 3 knives as most of my bowls fall in the 10-14" category. Anything much smaller than 10" or larger than 13" don't go well in my area. I do hollow the first cored bowl out by hand though as it is small and only takes a few minutes to rough out.
Have you cored any NE bowls yet? The Oneway makes it so easy, I can even now make the wall thickness pretty uniform.

[David Delo]

Great looking NE bowl David, the wall thickness looks even all the way around which is difficult for me.
Question regarding your original post...........did you use the #1,2, and 3 knives when you cored out the blank? I recently purchased the Oneway coring rig myself. But I only purchased the #2 and 3 knives as most of my bowls fall in the 10-14" category. Anything much smaller than 10" or larger than 13" don't go well in my area. I do hollow the first cored bowl out by hand though as it is small and only takes a few minutes to rough out.
Have you cored any NE bowls yet? The Oneway makes it so easy, I can even now make the wall thickness pretty uniform.

Used #1, #2 & #3 knives on the original pics. Would have gotten 8.5" bowl out of the first one if it didn't break off. Haven't cored NE yet but have a couple recently acquired cherry blanks that might be candidates. I have the #4 knife but probably won't be able to use that much unless I upgrade to a 24" lathe but do have some 16" x 6"--8" bone dry catalpa blanks. One thing I did learn about using the Oneway for the first time with such a big blank was to finish off the diameter of the big blank to a size where you can get the banjo underneath to slide out of the way or use it to put a tenon on the cored bowl. Never had to worry about that with the McNaughton.

[daryl moses]

Thanks for the reply.
I think you'll love coring NE bowls with the Oneway. I've only cored one blank for them but got three bowls out of it. [hollowed out the "baby" bowl by hand] I cored them probably just 1/2" thick and as soon as I was done coring I finish turned them. They were a big hit at an Art Gallery sale and were the first bowls to sell. People were amazed at how they "nested" into each other.