Turning the african sumac hf yesterday was quite a chore, little by little my lathe has been losing torque and yesterday was bad enough that even light cuts with the hollower would slow or stop the piece.
So when I got home today, I opened up the lathe and sure enough the motor belt was pretty loose. I replace the belts about a year ago with link belts, so I was able to just pull off the belt, take off a couple of links and slip it back on.
I went to the blank pile outside to find something to test the torque, and picked up this carob crotch piece. I could see that it had a big bark inclusion, and I figured it would probably be full of cracks, but I just wanted to see how big a bite the lathe would handle without slowing down.
I didn't take as big of cuts as I wanted to since it looked like the bark inclusion might go deep and I also found another big inclusion with a knot. I was able to take bigger cuts than I've been able to do in a long time and no hesitation or slowing.
Except for the inclusions, the blank didn't have nearly as many cracks as I expected, it help up pretty well for spending the AZ summer outside.
It's 9" x 2 1/2", left a little thick to avoid flexing, finished with 1 coat of antique oil.
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Thanks for looking!
Comments and critiques are welcome.
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