Practice wood?

[Carole Valentine]

I thought I might set up my mini with a glue block and see if I could turn some sort of small shallow bowl. Can I practice on pine or will that just frustrate me? Don't have any green wood blanks and the only hardwoods I have are walnut and white oak, neither of which are over 4/4. I suppose I could laminate.

[Harry Pye]

Carole,

While pine isn't the best turning wood, you can certainly use it for practice. Be prepared for a lot of tear-out and keep your tools as sharp as possible. If you can turn pine to a decent finish before sanding, you are doing really well and ready for some hardwoods.

In his video on the skew chisel, Alan Lacer recommends using dimensional lumber as practice wood. That is for turning between centers and with a skew.

You might want to check in your wood pile for practice wood too.

Did I mention to keep your tools sharp?

Harry

[Jim Becker]

You can practice on ANY available wood, Carole, but Harry is correct that soft pine is sometimes actually harder to turn than scrap hardwoods...including that off the firewood pile!

[Michael Stafford]

Carole, if you want to have some fun and get some practice turning mini-bowls, try turning some coasters out of decent close grained hardwoods. You only need a piece about 5" square and you can make a bunch of coasters and get a head start on Christmas for next year. If you're gonna use them use poly as a finish...

[Jean Holland]

Carole,

I used pine for practice. You need to go lightly though. I turned some nice practice pieces. I also found some good practice wood from to wood pile for the fireplace. Check with friends and neighbors.