One of our Brasstown [NC] Woodturner guys brought a truckload of woodturning blanks to our last meeting, and shared them with the rest of the members. I took home a piece labeled "ficus"; I can't attest to the species, but it was FUN to turn. Thanks for the wood, Talmadge Murphy.
I put it on a face plate on the flat side to begin, and turned the outside of the half-log round, and put on a tenon. Then I removed the face plate, reversed it using the chuck, and flattened the inside face, and added a tenon there as well. I then mounted my BowlSaver Max3 (from Kiwi-Land), and cored out 3 bowls, working from outside in. The tenon on the flat side enabled me to easily mount the remaining wood and cut a tenon on the round side, for each of the next two bowls. The bowls were 14", 12" and 10" diameter. Because the wood was dry already, I didn't have to worry about twice-turning.
The wood was spectacularly spalted, as you can see from the photos. There were some punky areas, and I used thinned epoxy as a wood stabilizer (thin with + 25% alcohol, then apply heavily to the punky areas; the epoxy is thin enough to soak in, stiffening the soft wood fibers). After the final cuts on the lathe, I applied several coats of FGCI's Ultra Clear epoxy, giving everything a high-gloss finish. (I was using my self-made 'Epoxinator,' a slow-rotator powered by a BBQ spit motor, 2-3 rpm, to keep the epoxy in place with constantly-changing gravity forces.)
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The three bowls, nested and aligned.
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The 'baby-bear' bowl, about 10 inches. The pith shows at the top, and 'SE' corner, as well. All 3 bowls showed this rich-brown pith wood.
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The 'mama-bear' bowl, about 12 inches.
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And finally, the 'papa-bear' bowl, about 14 inches (5" height).
I had read comments that ficus was bland in color, and generally too small to make much of. In this case, wrong and wrong.
Robert
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