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Thread: Pleasant surprise in "my friend has a tree" wood

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Northern MN
    Posts
    389

    Pleasant surprise in "my friend has a tree" wood

    I think all woodturner's have the same experience where a friend or relative says they have a tree or piece of wood that they think I would be interested in, and 9 out of 10 times it's useless. However once in a while. . .

    A friend said his brother-in-law was taking down a maple tree in his yard and would I like some of the wood. He said he thought it was 20-24" in diameter (another rule -- people always think a tree is bigger than it really is), so I said sure. This was an easy call as he was not only willing to save the wood for me, but was willing to bring it up from the Twin Cities and deliver it on his next trip north. He brought two log sections; was more like 16"-ish in diameter under the bark, but it was sound and bright wood, so I was pleasantly surprised.

    I cut it into blanks and turned the first one. . .now I wish I had the whole tree. Delicate curl edge to edge and nice color. Pic below is the green rough of a platterish-bowl, 3" thick and 15" in diameter - the rim does not fall off at the outside, that's a fisheye camera illusion, and the curl is a little better than the camera conveys. The point is the wood, not the turning (it took years to overcome my anal streak and internalize that time spent refining cuts on green roughs was wasted). This piece was taken closer to the pith than might have been wise, I was trying to leave a second bowl to the outside of the log. The rim might split at the end grain, we'll see -- if it does survive it will distort, so I left the rim 1" thick (deep) to have something left even if it cups strongly in drying. Anchorseal and a paper bag, we'll see what it looks like in 6 months.

    Enough to keep me saying yes when someone says they have wood!

    Best,

    Dave

    Curly maple rough 2021-01-25.jpg

  2. #2
    nice looking wood.

  3. #3
    Ya people always do think a log is much bigger than it is. I have people offer me walnut trees that turn out to be 8 inches in diameter. Seems like anybody that has a walnut thinks it is worth big money. They forget the waste, time and effort to cut it and clean up all the branches etc, cost to get it somewhere to get it sawed and dried. That being said, a neighbor told me he had an eastern red cedar trunk he would bring to me. I kind of said no but did take it and am glad I did. I managed to turn 4 medium sized bowls that were beautiful, knots bark inclusions etc. like the op said, good enough to keep me interested in more offers of free wood in the future

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2018
    Location
    Cambridge Vermont
    Posts
    2,282
    Around here red maple is seen as firewood or pallet making material. I can't tell you the number of pieces I've split only to find it's curly. It's color is also kind of unusual. Often it's like your piece but I have found stuff on my property that has a grayish hue. I try to take a small hatchet when cutting one so I can split a piece to see if it's curly. Around 1 in 5 I've found have figure of some sort.

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