My first bit of green-wood turning.

[Les Symonds]

Confidence is growing! This morning I tried turning a piece of wet ash. Perhaps not truly green, as it was felled a few years ago, but left out in the rain and has developed a good bit of spalting. It was still very wet just a small distance in from the surface, so was much easier to turn than the other spalted stuff that I've worked with to date.

I know how much Dewl (David) likes the WIP shots, so I'll start with the lump and work my way through.

I've still not got my bandsaw up-and-running, so this was roughed out with a chainsaw and I nipped the corners off through my bench saw just before starting.



Working the outside of the block revealed a horrible crack in the sound part of the ash, so I had to sacrifice quite a lot of wood to get below it. Still a nice shape developed and I decided to keep it very simple for a first attempt.















Overall size is rather meager compared with the lump that I started with....it's 110mmdiam x 70mm tall

Comments and criticisms always welcome

Les

[Bryan Milham]

Les,

two things;

1. You'll never  get a big a turning as you'd think from Green timber, and
2. Never try to squeeze this biggest piece you can out of a bit of timber.

The reason for 2 is you work to the wood and what it dictates, not what you want and your design but we've all been there!

So how did you find the green wood. Personally, once you get past the 'dunk, dunk, dunk' to a balanced round piece of wood I love the way the shavings peel off in long ribbons and fly over my shoulder.

I like what you've created even if it does look a bit dictated not designed. maybe the foot could have been a bit narrower, but I like the general shape. Well done, now comes the drying and warping!

[bodrighywood]

It's always satisfying to turn green wood and as D says now comes the interesting part. If you are lucky it will warp and twist and not split. Looks thin enough to get away with it. Show a picture of it in a week or two

ete

[Les Symonds]

Hi Bryan/Pete....this was a piece of wood out of the batch that I bought several weeks ago, when I posted a pic of all the holly/ash/oak/elm. I think that I've learnt my lesson and in future I'll be collecting a few small pieces at a time. The holly is spectacularly marked, but is splitting like mad and I won't get much out of it. Having said that, it was so cheap that it worked out cheaper than ash firewood that I buy, so it won't go to waste.
As for having fun making ribbons of shavings; there wasn't a single point at which it was possible to get a ribbon of sound wood off the entire circumference of the bowl because the spalting was so soft that it didn't cut away very smoothly.....it gave shavings, but they broke up.

Thanks for the comments....Les

[woodndesign]

Diolch gwyntog,

Very good on the WIP, everyone can pick up on the work at hand. The piece turned ..   .. out really well for a first in green, if not in the end size .. interesting in just how different it is from a round blank till the corners are gone, nice plain form to complement the spalting, good flowing curve, could the foot been a little narrower, just me ..   ..  then it did fall over in the last picture ..   ..  you've got a really good finish.  Well done.

Dewi

 PS.. Bryan beat me to the post about the foot ..