End Grain Platter

[Jim King]

As many seem to be enjoying the unusual woods we have here I thought I would post one more that I think is attractive. This is about 20 inches in dia. and 1/2 inch thick end grain turned. The wood is a log slice of Tigre Caspi a semi soft wood about like oak.

[Steve Knowlton]

JIm, That is an awesome piece. I love the grain pattern. Great work

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

That sure is nice, kind of looks like roses, inside roses!

Cheers!

[Jeff Myers]

Is that piece a pretty good(ie. typical) example of that type of wood's grain? ..Or was it selected specifically because that one had so much of it going on? If that's typical, i'm gonna have to try a piece of that!!!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Jim that is a mighty fine looking platter. Love the grain pattern. Nice form and finish. Great job.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Jim that is a mighty fine looking platter. Love the grain pattern. Nice form and finish. Great job.

[Jim King]

Jeff:

That is standard of the grain in this wood. I will attach aanother photo of the same wood in flat grain. This family of woods with the same type grain but different species come in colors from pink, violet, browns and black as we have found so far.

[Jim King]

Stu: Here is another species same idea . I actually named it the Rose.

[Tom Sherman]

Jim this is very nice wood great form too. I have a couple of pieces of the same wood very small though about 4x4 inches that is. My wife and I turned a small bowl for a friend of hers for her birthday a couple of months ago, it does turn well but it made me sneeze something awful. I really liked the way it finished up and the lady was very pleased with it. Really like your work and the wood you have available is awsome as well.

[John Timberlake]

Gorgeous platter and bowls, Jim. Reminds me of a lighter, prettier version of zircote grain. Keep 'em coming. Love to see new things.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, that's really, really interesting! And it's not often you see an end-grain turned platter or even a flat bowl done that way. Very nice!

[Corey Hallagan]

Jim, I just love your posts with these pieces turned from this great "far out" wood! Beautiful platter.

Corey

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Those are ALL LOVELY, Jim!


Bruce

[Jim King]

Jim: End grain turning of log slices is quite easy. First thing is they dry very fast as the slices are only three or four inches thick and the water litterally runs out of the slices. The only tricky part is the first step of mounting it on the lathe to turn a perfectly flat surface. If it doesnt blow up here you have it made. Then I glue onto the flat surface 3/4 inch boards for the face flate to be mounted on and have at it. When done with the bowl or platter just turn off the 3/4 inch backer board from the back side down to the face plate. Take it off remount in the donut and finish the botton.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, I can see that it's a very nice thing to do...I may actually try it given the pile of fresh logs I have available. Hopefully, I can do it without the log slice falling victim to the tendency of radial cracking as it dries...

[Jim King]

Jim: Nothing wrong with some cracks filled with poly or resin mixed with the right color sanding dust. They look nice when filled properly.

[Mark Cothren]

More excellent work, Jim! I love that platter, for sure!!! Great wood - thanks for sharing!

[Quinn McCarthy]

Jim

Wonderful job!!

I think we are getting to it slowly.

How do you keep these from radially cracking?

Thanks

Quinn

[Jim King]

Quinn:

The first thing is if we get a few radial cracks we kind of like it as we fill them with resin and fine sanding dust from the same wood. It most times adds to the appearance. Once in a while we also get a real dog that is to ugly to finish.
Another way is to glue or screw dry flat boards to the bottom of the log slice and dry it slowly , depending if you have glue that will work with wet wood. You will be suprised how fast 4 inch thick end grain will dry compared to flat boards. Just bury it for the first week upside downd in dry sawdust and most of the water will dry out but it still needs another month in front of a fan.

We have made a sort of table that slides over the logslices with the router mounted in it that gives us a perfectly smooth log slice ready for final sanding. We made the router bit out of several 1/2 inch square helical head planer knives mounted on a head that we had machined locally for $4.

I will attach another photo of a cleaned up log slice that had a good sized crack in it that now looks like part of the slice. If it would be helpful I could take a series of photos of the process.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Thanks Jim

I think I will give it a try. I have some cherry to work with.

Thanks for the info!!

Quinn