Frank Klausz, a well known old world trained furniture maker,
does a demonstration whose underlying concept may have a
potentially interesting application for creating design elements
on turnings. The sequence for Mr. Klausz's technique is as
follows:

1. plane the side grain of the surface smooth
2. with a tool harder than the wood, selectively crush/compress
the side grain in a line, or outline of a shape
3. plane the surface again so the top of the new surface is
flush with the bottom of the depression(s) caused by
crushing/compressing the grain in the previous step
4. either wait for the wood to absorb moisture out of the air
or
dampen the newly planed surface with water

What will happen is that the grain that had been crushed/
compressed will swell up back to its original size - now ABOVE
the surrounding wood.

Think of it as the reverse of embossing. With embossing
your crush what is to be low spots/areas, leaving the uncrushed
areas "high". With this technique, you crush what is to be high,
remove the surrounding wood then "uncrush" the crushed areas.

Some possible applications:

Turn the outside of a piece, preferably one made from a soft
wood (not a "softwood", some of which can be harder than some
"hardwood"), and finish the outside surface to the point just
before adding any liquid finish.

With a smooth tool which won't cut or tear the grain, the round
end of a push rod, a crochet hook, a knitting "needle" etc. for
example, turn a smooth groove around the piece. Press hard
- you want to really compress the wood BUT NOT CUT OR TEAR
IT.

NOTE: you're doing this BEFORE you remove any wood
from the inside of the piece. You want the force
you apply to the "crushing/compressing" tool to
crush/compress the outside grain, NOT flex the
piece.

Re-turn the surface, removing just enough to get the new
outside surface flush with the bottom of the groove you
just made.

With a damp, not soaking wet, cloth, dampen the surface of
the piece - and wait. After a while, you should see that the
line you "inscribed" is now a raised rounded ridge. It may be
subtle or quite noticeable, depending on how hard the wood is,
how prominent the grain figure is and how hard you pressed
the tool into the spinning wood.

The idea can be applied using leather embossing tools or
stamping tools. You just want to have as much of the
"stamp" in contact with the wood as possible. Since you're
working on a curved surface, the flatter the curve the more
contact area between it and the stamp and the more of the
pattern you'll get on your piece.

Am tied up until Christmas turning gifts so I won't have time
to try this out. If YOU have some time give it a try. Who
ever does it - please report back.

charlie b