In message , John
writes
In message , John
writes
We all know Mac loves his Lignum Vitae, but does anyone know of
sources within the UK?

I have found a one, but they have only small pieces of branch 6 inch x
2 inch. The other option being redundant crown green bowls, but they
again are limited in size

Well, I have been lucky to pick up a couple of Crown Green Bowls, made
of Lignum Vitae, so now its a case of turning this round object into
another round object, well after I figure out how to hold them.

There appears to be three holes in one side, probably for a chuck of
some type, as they do not seem deep enough to take screws (about 1/4
inch). There is also an insert which is about 1 inch diameter on both
sides. I am currently thinking of holding the bowl by the three holes,
and then converting the insert recess on the other side to a dovetail.
Has anyone tried this before? IS there a better way of holding them?

Well I finally got to turn the Lignum.

This time I found that I just drilled out the centre, of one of the
recesses, an inserted a pin chuck to hold it while I turned a dovetail
on the other side.

Now the for post-mortem on turning Lignum Vitae

1, make the dovetail deep if your going to use one. As Lignum is so
hard, it doesn't compress like most other woods so your grip appears to
be less . With my shallow dovetail, I found on 3 occasions I had to pick
the piece up from the floor.

2, When turning, gouges were out, and scrapers were little better. I
found I was using the corner of the parting tool as a cutter, bit like
on a metal lathe. ( Maybe I should have moved the wood to the metal
lathe and worked there )

3, There was a three- way crack in the centre of the old bowling wood,
which I found then hollowing, and they just happened to radiate to the
outside. Part of the reason the scraper was out as it would catch and
provide enough leverage to tear the turning from the chuck. After
experiments with even the lightest touch of the scraper, it could still
provide enough of a catch, I put this down to the area of scraper
leading edge contacting the crack in one go, the parting tool was taking
only a few 100ths at a time, at a small contact point so less forces
involved.

4. There was a lovely aroma from the wood, smelling almost like Dark
Brown Sugar, or Molasses.

5, The surface felt oily to the touch,

6. In all a nice wood to turn, all I need now is for better planning
before I use the second bowl. Maybe this time I will halve it and make
two shallow dishes from it, who knows

--
John