Yesterday a friend was cleaning up a fence row and I grabbed a 10 inch
sassafras tree and cut 32 bowl blanks from it and sealed the ends. I
counted 52 growth rings. The wood is light, even when wet and reminds
me of catalpa although a little heavier.

This morning I roughed out 5 bowls in an hour and 15 minutes. This
included measuring, bandsawing, mounting, changing chucks and tool
rests out. During this time I also emptied the shavings collector and
cleaned out the hose several times and sharpened the gouges. Once the
blank is balanced you can really hog out the wood and it smells like
spicy soap.

I love green wood turning except getting up the mountain of shavings.
--
Gerald Ross
Cochran, GA

Detour: The roughest distance between
two points.