Thanks for that info Jim, and everyone else who's replied. I had a good
baking today of a disk for a couple of hours and it seems to have
worked. I've got 80% through the job before I've stopped it and I'm
baking it again. It seems that you are right. I just need to anneal it
a few times to get the job finished.

I called the shop where I bought the aluminium today and they didnt
have any info on the type of aluminium so I must assume its as some of
you said 1100. I also rang a metal supplier I've used in the past for
bit of copper on occassion and the sales lady actually asked if its for
spinning which I was happy about. It seems that there is a local
spinning business nearby which uses either 5005 or 1100 aluminium. A 3
foot by 6 foot sheet of 1mm 5005 runs in at $58 so I might need to pick
some of that up as I'm not going to have enough of the other, and then
I'll be able to do some comparison of the two.

The only other thing I did today was to increase the washer used to
affix the aluminium dish to the mandrel. Its an unusual way to spin it
I guess but without a very large swing on a lathe its a bit hard to use
a tailstock. At least my ghoulies are firming up a bit!

I'll keep the group posted about the results.

It'd be great if you could email me that video of what dave hout did
Jim. My email is

Thanks very much
Nick