I'm a newbie just started turning wood and want to know if there's any difference in turning soft wood such as ash, yew , silver birch etc against hardwood such as oak. Are these soft wood best avoided or do you have to finish them differently, such as sealing them or putting a hard varnish to protect etc. As much info and feedback as possible please
TIA
Mark

In article ,
Sniperborg wrote:

I'm a newbie just started turning wood and want to know if there's any
difference in turning soft wood such as ash, yew , silver birch etc
against hardwood such as oak. Are these soft wood best avoided or do
you have to finish them differently, such as sealing them or putting a
hard varnish to protect etc. As much info and feedback as possible
please
TIA
Mark

Mark I've got news for you!
All the woods you mention are in fact Hardwoods. To clarify Hardwoods
come from broad leaf deciduous trees and softwoods come from needle leaf
evergreens. There are exceptions but there is no connection with how
hard or soft the actual wood from a tree is. For instance Balsa is a
hardwood. So is Oak, Ash, Maple and Birch.
If you are just starting then my advice is turn everything you can lay
your hands on hard or soft it doesn't matter until you are turning for
practical uses. Then it would be foolish to turn balsa as a salad bowl!
I have even turned styrofoam bead board, plywood and brass and aluminum.
Some woods are easier than others and some are almost impossible but you
will learn a lot more turning all woods rather than trying to stick
with one or two species.

--
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meet me at:
http://peterhyde.bravehost.com/

"Sniperborg" wrote in message
...

I'm a newbie just started turning wood and want to know if there's any
difference in turning soft wood such as ash, yew , silver birch etc
against hardwood such as oak. Are these soft wood best avoided or do
you have to finish them differently, such as sealing them or putting a
hard varnish to protect etc. As much info and feedback as possible
please

As noted, perhaps not hard woods, but hardwoods by definition, save yew.

The softer, stringier woods tend to want better angles and sharper tools
than harder types. Woods like the true poplars and their cousins the
willows fall into this category. Black ash can be a bit difficult, but
white is a pleasure. Birch is always friendly.

A lot of softwoods have a large difference in hardness between early
(soft/light) wood and late (hard/dark) wood which can make them a challenge
on a couple levels. They bounce a tool over differences, unless you're
firmly rooted to the rest, and when a thin portion of hard collapses into
soft, it tears. Oak is somewhat the same, with big differences in hardness
, though here it's the early, large-pored areas that are hardest.

I am prone to offering the honest, if somewhat flippant answer to people who
ask what kind of wood I use for turnings - "fire." The very best kind of
wood to learn or turn is what you have available at low cost.

Depends on where your coming from...in the radio control airplane hobby,
balsa is a softwood, pine/fir/spruce is considered a hardwood.
Then there are various grades of balsa, from kleenex soft to brick hard.

John

Thanks for the various replys so far. I've now roughed a couple of silver birch which seem to tear away leaving fluffy edges, i hope once they have dried they will finish a lot easier. The other two that i've roughed i will have to try and identify, 1st is a deepish orange/red and the other had a lovely pink and seperate white area. I do remember seeing a link to a web page that showed all the various types, can some one save me looking through provide a link.
This wood turning seems a steep learning curve.
My first couple of bowls i used some three year old oak. I though this must be air dried and ready to turn, i didn't think about all the rain we had and thus i now have some interesting shaped bowls.

While others may vary in their experience, I have found the birches to be
prone to tear out and fuzz. When dry for final turning and sanding, they are
a bit easier to get a nice finish, but still a little difficult. I find that
after finsihing with anything other than a laquer, they have a gritty feel
that disappears with a quick sanding with 2000 grit paper. That said, they
are a pleasure to turn and have some amazing grains and spalt to a delicious
coloration.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com