Preface: I live in San Jose, California - the city
described as a place with no There there.

The definition of an optimist is - One who, when place
in a room full of horse manure, will assume there's
a pony in there somewhere and then spend hours
trying to find it.

I'm an optimistic woodworker. Give me a piece of
wood and I'll look for the pony hidden in it. So, being
one who will try finding Something in Anything wood
I've once again turned something into nothing.

The Something in this case was a 10" 5x7 oval branch of
a deodor cedar that had been sitting for several years.
Whoever cut it didn't undercut the branch first so it had
splintered a bit - and deep splintered to boot. But it was
cedar - and free.

Bandsawed to get most of the bark off and get an
approximately hexagonal blank to turn - splinters and
all included.

Got it round and CN glued the cracks and splits as bess
I could, waited an hour then went hunting for sound wood
with a roughing gouge followed by a skew. Rough, skew,
check for sound wood. Nope. Rough, skew, check for
sound wood. Kept this up 'til I was approaching No. 2
pencil size before giving up. Never found sound wood.

Like dirt from a hole, turning seems to create far more
shavings than could possibly be in the origianl piece of
wood.

But the optimist in me notes that I've got a hell of
a supply of cedar chips for a Sh*t Load of sachets!
Not as aromatic as Spanish cedar but close enough.

Now I must sharpen the roughing gouge and skew,
THEN try the next chunk of wood in my "Gotta Be
A Pony In This One" pile. Maybe I should play the
lottery instead. Nah.

With time, does this Pony In There Somewhere thing
wear off?

charlie b