Lovin the new lathe

[Ron Stadler]

Well finally got to turn a few things the last couple of days, made a pen , a walnut box, and a few roughed out hollow forms. I scored some "tulip poplar" yesterday and cut it all up into blanks that i can use. Never turned it before so this is my first, can't wait till it
dries so I can see how it finishes. Also got a little cedar and elm wood. Definetly can tell I have'nt done this in awhile, somethings seem kind of awkward to me at first but i coming around. So heres a new pic of the lathe with shavings, looks much better that way also a pic of my little box i made.
making shavings.jpgscale of box.jpgfirst box with pwrmatic.jpg

[Thomas Canfield]

Looking good. Makes my old B lathe look bad, but not that bad. Enjoy it. Nice box. Looking forward to some larger pieces soon.

[Ron Stadler]

Yep, looking foward to making some bigger stuff. Right now though just trying to get of feel of things . The vortex sucked me back in again, I love this hobby.

[Bill Bukovec]

How long before the cat started playing with it?

[John K Jordan]

Nice to see the shavings! Did you put catnip in the box?

I like turning tulip/yellow poplar - we have a lot growing here and I save some when a tree is down for the sawmill and the lathe. Problem is many are close to and even over 3' in diameter! Poplar seems to get a bad rap sometimes, perhaps because the figure is often bland, or I don't know, maybe people confuse it with true poplar because of the name. It's fine grained, turns beautifully, and finishes nicely. Dries fairly quickly too. I wish I had more big chunks. I've made small boxes, "magic" wands, finger tops, bowls, and lots of flatwood things.

JKJ

[Ron Stadler]

Lol, yeah this is are new addition to our home, chewing up all our usb cords. He was in the pic for scale

[Ron Stadler]

No catnip in box, lol. He is inquisitive about everything at this stage.
Yeah, I don't know a lot about Tulip Poplar, this guy had a lot of huge chunks of it though that i manage to cut some slabs off so that i could handle getting them into my truck, kinda over did it though and back is quite sore now. Good to here it dries quickly though, most of my blanks i cut were in the thought of making hollow forms just because how how this tree was cut up.

Nice to see the shavings! Did you put catnip in the box?

I like turning tulip/yellow poplar - we have a lot growing here and I save some when a tree is down for the sawmill and the lathe. Problem is many are close to and even over 3' in diameter! Poplar seems to get a bad rap sometimes, perhaps because the figure is often bland, or I don't know, maybe people confuse it with true poplar because of the name. It's fine grained, turns beautifully, and finishes nicely. Dries fairly quickly too. I wish I had more big chunks. I've made small boxes, "magic" wands, finger tops, bowls, and lots of flatwood things.

JKJ

[John K Jordan]

No catnip in box, lol. He is inquisitive about everything at this stage.
Yeah, I don't know a lot about Tulip Poplar, this guy had a lot of huge chunks of it though that i manage to cut some slabs off so that i could handle getting them into my truck, kinda over did it though and back is quite sore now. Good to here it dries quickly though, most of my blanks i cut were in the thought of making hollow forms just because how how this tree was cut up.

I don't have many photos of things I've made from the wood but here is one Beads of Courage box:
BOC_B_comp.jpg
I made this from a fairly big chunk cut green maybe 7-8 years before and put on the shelf to dry. I don't remember the size but based on the size of the music box in the lid it's probably 5-6" wide, end grain turning. I wish I had cut and dried a bunch more!

Poplar seems fairly stable too unlike a lot of other hardwoods. I've air dried some big blocks (without any pith in them) just by waxing the ends with Anchorseal and forgetting about them - nothing cracked. Twice turned bowls or forms should should work very well. If I were you I'd probably cut the blocks up as soon as possible into a variety of blank sizes and seal the end grain on those you won't use right away. I turn a lot of smaller things so I tend to make a bunch of 1"-4" squares too.

JKJ

[Ron Stadler]

Yep that looks like the same wood I have, and I really like your project there, very nice. I guess the man that gave me the wood knew his trees, well he cut them down for a living so I guess he would. Thanks for the pics, thats really cool.

I don't have many photos of things I've made from the wood but here is one Beads of Courage box:
BOC_B_comp.jpg
I made this from a fairly big chunk cut green maybe 7-8 years before and put on the shelf to dry. I don't remember the size but based on the size of the music box in the lid it's probably 5-6" wide, end grain turning. I wish I had cut and dried a bunch more!

Poplar seems fairly stable too unlike a lot of other hardwoods. I've air dried some big blocks (without any pith in them) just by waxing the ends with Anchorseal and forgetting about them - nothing cracked. Twice turned bowls or forms should should work very well. If I were you I'd probably cut the blocks up as soon as possible into a variety of blank sizes and seal the end grain on those you won't use right away. I turn a lot of smaller things so I tend to make a bunch of 1"-4" squares too.

JKJ