What causes this? + wood gloat.

[Toney Robertson]

Since people have found out that I am turning bowls I am amazed about how much free wood has showed up.

Just today a guy dropped by some oak that has a weird blueish tint to it. What would cause this? Should make some interesting bowls.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/IMG_2118.jpg


http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/IMG_2119.jpg

The rest of the wood has showed up in the last couple of weeks. The cherry came out of my yard. The spalted maple was a tree that was cut down by a friend of mine. There is also some ash (I think)

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/IMG_2121.jpg

This is a picture of what I already have cut and sealed. The chainsaw is on the fritz right now but as you can see above as soon as I get it back I have got to get to work. The only price for all you see was 3 or 4 bowls, gas and oil for the chainsaw and my time. Priceless.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/IMG_2120.jpg

I think I am set for a while and yet every time I see a tree being cut down I look for more. It is a sickness. :D

Toney

[Nathan Hawkes]

the blue stain is usually from iron somewhere in the tree. Be careful when cutting that up! Nice score, BTW. That should make some cool bowls. I found some metal in a maple the hard way this spring---ruined an almost new 32" chain!!!

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Hi Toney
Oak and other woods have tannic acid in the wood, if it comes in contact with iron it will react and the wood will change color, depending on the trees, from a dark blueish black to a dark brown, it the wood is dry the coloration will not happen.
It can be a bad experience if you turn some fresh wet Oak, and than wipe the sap off of the tools and lathe and wipe the blank as well to feel the curve a few times, the nice wood now has a lot of color you might not like ;-((
BTDT ;-))
Steel in the wood will of course do the same thing, they usually show as streaks, depending how big and where the steel is in the wood.

[Frank Kobilsek]

Toney,

I like your drying racks. It looks like its time for you to stop collecting logs/slabs and start rough turning. Your racks will be perfect to store roughed out pieces.

May I offer a pinch more advice. I don't know where you are on your learning curve so I'll assume you are turning less than a couple years. Here are a few more reasons not to put so much work into inventory of slabs.

1) Logs/slabs stored wet and coated can begin to dry rot or get punky if not roughed out within a year or so. I have found this specially true on fruit woods including cherry.
2) You will find you just don't enjoy working with certain woods. For example I just don't like oak. I do not enjoy turning it and don't think turned items from oak look good. When I decided I wasn't working in oak any longer, a lot of waxed slabs ended up in on the burn pile.
3) Your chain saw skills and your eye for cutting the best slabs from a log will improve over time. I learned some new skills on how to orient a slab in a log this past winter and now I'm disapointed in pieces that I slabbed and rough turned prior to coming to this understanding.
4) Eventually your family will revolt from thier inability to park the car in the garage, store the summer garden tools for the winter, etc because you have slabs stacked everywhere.
5) Trees are still growing. There will always be more wood.

Exception to this speech - always go get burls, regardless of species!

So based on your pictures it is time to learn to say no to friends that call with wood and start rough turning. All this said I am impressed with your stash.

Frank

[curtis rosche]

it is also from bar oil

[Bernie Weishapl]

Congrats on the stash. You won't need turning wood for a couple of years. I like your storage rack. I agree with Leo on the color. I had that happen on some oak after being sawed with the chainsaw. It turned a blueish/black.

[Dennis Peacock]

Nice stash of wood.

The color in oak is most times from:
old barbed wire that the tree grew around
old horseshoe left in the tree from many years ago
bar oil stain but that doesn't penetrate all the wood like what is in your pick.

I'd be pretty careful while turning that piece of wood. Been There and Experienced That. :)

[Paul Downes]

I would guess iron stain from experience. I cut a white oak a while back that had square nails in the center. The tree was 4' dia. so I figure those nail were in there a long time. I did save a few pieces of the gray wood for a special project someday. I had to get something back for the chain saw chains I wrecked getting the tree down.

[Terry Achey]

Toney,

I like your drying racks. It looks like its time for you to stop collecting logs/slabs and start rough turning. Your racks will be perfect to store roughed out pieces.

May I offer a pinch more advice. I don't know where you are on your learning curve so I'll assume you are turning less than a couple years. Here are a few more reasons not to put so much work into inventory of slabs.

1) Logs/slabs stored wet and coated can begin to dry rot or get punky if not roughed out within a year or so. I have found this specially true on fruit woods including cherry.
2) You will find you just don't enjoy working with certain woods. For example I just don't like oak. I do not enjoy turning it and don't think turned items from oak look good. When I decided I wasn't working in oak any longer, a lot of waxed slabs ended up in on the burn pile.
3) Your chain saw skills and your eye for cutting the best slabs from a log will improve over time. I learned some new skills on how to orient a slab in a log this past winter and now I'm disapointed in pieces that I slabbed and rough turned prior to coming to this understanding.
4) Eventually your family will revolt from thier inability to park the car in the garage, store the summer garden tools for the winter, etc because you have slabs stacked everywhere.
5) Trees are still growing. There will always be more wood.

Exception to this speech - always go get burls, regardless of species!

So based on your pictures it is time to learn to say no to friends that call with wood and start rough turning. All this said I am impressed with your stash.

Frank
Frank,
Thanks for posting this tidbit of advise. I have quite a few green blanks coated and stored for about 5 months now. I figured the achorseal would protect them for years. Guess I'd better get to roughing out this fall / winter.;)

Terry

[Nathan Hawkes]

I've been turning like gangbusters for the last couple of days, because I just found the same thing recently. The blanks do lose water, even if sealed pretty well. I lost a few blanks of silver maple that I'd sealed last winter that I noticed were starting to check very badly even though they were sealed. Some cherry pieces ended up in the firewood pile as well. I found a fair bit of rot in a couple pieces of maple that had very little when I put them there. Oh well. I can't complain, really--it was free & I have scores of pieces cut for use. I'm roughing out as many as I can now. Time to get another 5gal bucket of DNA next week.