Skippy Jones wrote:

Good solid stuff, it was overhanging his house so he needed to cut it down
before something broke and came crashing through the roof. I've grabbed
about 10 good size logs, all about 15-24 inches long, 12"-18" in diameter
(carried it all home in my Jetta ) I've never worked with silver maple
before, but it's pretty soft (maybe just because it's wet) and turns pretty
easily (again probably the wetness)

I've turned some of the smaller branches into bowls with the bark left on
the outside. Wife likes them for rustic decorations around the house and
even asked me if we could make candles out of em. I instructed her that
wood does indeed burn and thus probably would not make a good candle holder,
although I did satisfy her by putting tea lights in a few very wet ones I
had just turned.

My question to the group as I'm relatively new to turning (about 6 months)
is should I let the logs dry out, then cut the bowl blanks? Or should I cut
the blanks, turn the bowls, and then let them dry? I turned a small branch
into a vase and the next day it had many ugly cracks in it. But the few
"bowls" I've turned with it haven't cracked.

I'd ideally like to make many bowls out of this stuff, mainly to work on my
technique, but also to have a nice set of bowls. I'd also like to turn some
natural edge bowls and I think I should do these now as I believe if I turn
them when dry, the bark will chip much easier.

TIA!

Mike Rinken


I got some that had been standing dead awhile. Beautiful
spalting but where not spalted rather bland white wood.

--
Gerald Ross
Cochran, GA

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing
for money.





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