In article ,
(vmtw) wrote:

Do I need to trim the ends of a piece of firewood until there is not
any checking or cracking?

Not really. I usually just chuck the firewood, rough it to a cylinder,
and evalute the usable diameter and length between cracks at that point.
If it's overly rotten (or has "advanced spalting" ;^)) you may need to
trim back to get solid wood that will hold a center, or you may just
need to give up on it and choose another chunk that's not so far gone.

How "round" does a piece of fire wood need to be before I put it in
the lathe for spindle turning?

How slowly does your lathe go? With a slow enough lathe you can turn
just about any hunk of firewood round. If the low speed is too high you
need to get the balance of the piece well enough to allow you to turn it
without having the lathe flopping around, or the wood tearing itself out
of the lathe due to imbalance + speed. Most firewood I start with for
spindles is basically triangular (split from the log). When it has to go
in the ShopSmith, which does not go very slowly (500-700 RPM minimum), I
need to do more work with the drawknife before turning the motor on.

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