Hello all,

This evening, I had the basically sound idea that I should turn a
lamp... I went out and got the hardware and decided that the plank of
bird's eye maple I had down in the shop would look great as a lamp
base. So, I got the blank cut to size and ready for assembly (I'm
using all kiln-dried lumber for now, so most or all of my blanks are
laminated) I figured that it'd be a whole lot easier to run the wires
through the finished lamp if I left a space in the center, so I cut a
half inch out of the middle of the center plank, and made some nice
plugs for each end to set the centers into. Seemed like a good idea
at the time, but it turns out that the hole in the center really
should be square, and not .75 x .5!

So, I got it up on the lathe, and started turning away. Everything
was basically fine except for a bit of extra vibration, until I turned
off the lathe to check my progress. Turns out that bit of extra
vibration caused the panels to crack apart about 1/32 of an inch in
four spots right in the most prominant space on the lamp. The cracks
are about 4" long, and approximately 1/16" deep.

I tried sanding the sucker for alomst an hour with 60 grit to no
avail, and any attempts to cut or scrape the area just makes the gaps
wider and deeper. And as an extra kick in the pants, most of the
bird's eyes turned right out of the blank- so it just looks like
regular maple with a little curl to it.

I doubt I'm going to save this piece unless I just fill it with wood
putty and paint it, but I was wondering if any of you folks have had
similar problems, and what my best options for avoiding this in the
future may be...

Thanks!
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