I live in Eureka, CA. Redwoods everywhere here. There's a guy a few miles
away that sells burl on-line. Actually there's a few of them around, but he
is closest and has a cargo container full of burl, curly and birds-eye
redwood blocks, 12"x12"x12" or around that size. I'm still growing balls
big enough to purchase and chuck one up on the lathe. It's hard to pick out
a block too. The grain is going every which way. They also have 3 or 4
bins full of waste redwood that is free for the picking. It's mostly end
pieces, crotches and odd shaped stuff they don't have time to deal with. A
little chain saw and band saw work makes them into useable lathe material
for me. I'm going to dull my turning tools on those first especially after
seeing what happened to you with your turning experience. I made a rolling
pin from one a couple weeks ago. Bonus points with the wife . I'll post
a picture so you can see what typical wood looks like in case you're
interested. Pretty rough amateur level work, but hey a step up from file
handles.. You can imagine much nicer looking handles with coves and beads,
I'm sure..

"charlie b" wrote in message
...
Doing a set of turned lidded boxes - in recycled old growth redwood -
for a charity auction. Had one done - the smallest of the set of 3,
the medium sized one waiting for the epoxy to dry on the finial
to lid joint and the third, largest one almost ready for drilling
the hole in the lid for the finial tenon.

Despite caveats in the One Procedure for Turning a Lidded Box
I put together and posted earlier to a.b.p.w., I didn't check the
wall thickness as frequently as I should have. Got wrapped up
in watching what was happening to the inside wall - sanding
and looking if the previous grit's scratches were gone, that
I forgot to check the wall thickness. BIG mistake.

Will make it a point to include the pics I've posted in
alt.binaries.pictures.woodwkring - same subject line as
this message - on the appropriate page of the instructions
once I get them up on my web site.

Check wall thickness often - or suffer the consequences.

charlie b