graham wrote in :


The members of my local Woodturners' Guild turn many hundreds of tops
and sell them at a a major xmas craft fair, the proceeds (~$4,000)
going to the local foodbank.

Sounds like a good thing! I've gotten some compliments/comments
suggesting I could sell the tops, but I've refused. It's not that I mind
exchanging a block of wood for money, it's just that I don't want to be
stuck trudging to the lathe and making another top.

Something like what you're doing, though, is totally different.

Perhaps the coolest was a lidded box.

I often turn small lidded boxes. At first copying those in Ray Key's
books but now I turn other shapes. I have a chunk of ebony that I want
to use for some very special boxes but I want to turn as many as
possible in other, cheaper woods before risking it.
Graham

I definitely understand. I've got a little bit of Apple from a tree that
was mostly rotten, and I dug the stump out myself. That wood has a story
and I'm not ready to make it in to something yet. Has anyone here ever
typed the story of a piece of wood like that and presented that along
with a piece they're parting with?

Puckdropper