I kept the nail in this maple.

[Bob Bergstrom]

Our club harvested a couple Norway maples from a house on a corner lot in a subdivision. As with many urban trees I found a couple nails with my chainsaw. Not good for saw chains, but the wood look promising. This is one from the trunk. It measures a little under 18” and 2 1/2” deep. I used a wid rim to emphasize the spalt and fiddle. Third photo show the black stain and the nail.

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[John Keeton]

Striking figure, and as always a beautiful job on the bowl. Nice nail, too!

[Bob Bergstrom]

Ya John. I guess I “nailed it”. Oh that’s bad!

[Barry McFadden]

Great looking bowl..but wouldn't the nail ruin the turning tool??

[Marshall Harrison]

Beautiful looking bowl. I've never done any turning but I have seen demoes and videos. I'm curious like Barry as to how you did this without the nail causing problems.

[Bob Bergstrom]

The nail is well imbedded into the rim area of the bowl. My gouges are all powder metal D-Way and Thompson’s. The metal is pretty tough and the nail was so tight the gouges did not seem to have much trouble cutting through it. If the nail was loose, and able to vibrate I would have removed it. The wood is dry so I think is will be stable.

[John K Jordan]

The nail is well imbedded into the rim area of the bowl. My gouges are all powder metal D-Way and Thompson’s. The metal is pretty tough and the nail was so tight the gouges did not seem to have much trouble cutting through it. If the nail was loose, and able to vibrate I would have removed it. The wood is dry so I think is will be stable.

I've turned aluminum brass, and steel with Thompson tools and they worked with steel as long as I took it very slow (and sharpened often). Too bad we can't get 10V teeth on a bandsaw blade. I cut through a 1/2" steel spike recently on my Woodmizer and the blade was instantly trashed.

I saved a piece of bradford pear with a 12ga copper wire embedded. I saw it when I cut the tree - it's dry now and an excellent illustration of how much bradford pear shrinks - the wire is sticking out nearly 1/4" - but your picture makes me want to turn it now.

JKJ

[Bob Bergstrom]

I've turned aluminum brass, and steel with Thompson tools and they worked with steel as long as I took it very slow (and sharpened often). Too bad we can't get 10V teeth on a bandsaw blade. I cut through a 1/2" steel spike recently on my Woodmizer and the blade was instantly trashed.

I saved a piece of bradford pear with a 12ga copper wire embedded. I saw it when I cut the tree - it's dry now and an excellent illustration of how much bradford pear shrinks - the wire is sticking out nearly 1/4" - but your picture makes me want to turn it now.

JKJ
John, it is amazing what is embedded in trees. We were using an Alaskan mill to saw a large maple in a urban area and hit a 5/16” thick spike. 32” bar on the saw. Had to go home and get a Dremel to grind away the dulled points on the saw chain.

[John K Jordan]

John, it is amazing what is embedded in trees. We were using an Alaskan mill to saw a large maple in a urban area and hit a 5/16” thick spike. 32” bar on the saw. Had to go home and get a Dremel to grind away the dulled points on the saw chain.

My favorite "find" was a railroad spike. If I see any black streaks when sawing I stop! A ceramic fence insulator is fun too since it makes a distinctive "zzzzzt" sound when hit with the woodmizer blade. I do have a wand-type metal detector but it won't detect very deep and certainly won't detect ceramic.

Once I cut a yard tree at a friend's house which turned out to be hollow. The inside looked like an inverted porcupine with hundreds of nails driven in by years of boys nailing on ladder steps to their treehouses.

JKJ

[jared herbert]

I was planing some walnut yesterday and found a large caliber bullet in a crotch. I was going to run it through the planer one more time as I couldn't get it loose but it disintegrated and I was not able to find it.

[Brian Bumpers]

Bob,

The bowl turned out great. The nail adds character and a good story to boot in my opinion. My last large pecan turning had three 16 penny nails in it. I found the first one by surprise and chipped the corner of my carbide roughing tool. I saw the others before I hit them and was able to dig them out.

Brian