George Tokarev
03-18-2007, 4:59 PM
Been several good above-freezing days already, and the birch chunks I neglected to rough last fall were partially revealed this afternoon. I whacked one free of the ice with a sledge and fired up the chainsaw. It was from a good-sized butt, so I made a 15.5 salad bowl blank and a 14.5 centerpiece bowl. Had to chip ice off the one even after a couple hours in the shop making a large puddle on the floor.
Frozen wood can be painful on the hands, so I had to modify my normal tool presentation to keep the shavings from running down the flute of the gouge. Still stopped a couple times when hollowing to dip the hand in some warm water. On the plus side, as the pictures show, there was almost no water throw onto the tablesaw, as is normally the case. The wonderful wintergreen smell was still there in spite of the cold.
I'll let the bark-on piece cure a few days and thaw out before I turn it for thickness. Never have had a lot of luck with bark sticking to birch, because it has a lot more cohesion than adhesion, even with CA help, so this will likely end up a slick edge or burn edge piece.
Frozen wood can be painful on the hands, so I had to modify my normal tool presentation to keep the shavings from running down the flute of the gouge. Still stopped a couple times when hollowing to dip the hand in some warm water. On the plus side, as the pictures show, there was almost no water throw onto the tablesaw, as is normally the case. The wonderful wintergreen smell was still there in spite of the cold.
I'll let the bark-on piece cure a few days and thaw out before I turn it for thickness. Never have had a lot of luck with bark sticking to birch, because it has a lot more cohesion than adhesion, even with CA help, so this will likely end up a slick edge or burn edge piece.