Last summer, whilst trotting around Norfolk, I found this old root in a friend's shed.
....and as I've just had a new set of deep-grip jaws, today was the day to turn it. When I first saw it, I thought that it was yew, but as soon as I started to cut it, I knew that it wasn't. It cut too easily - I'm guessing that on old, dry yew root would be very hard. My next thought was Leylandii, whgich would make sense as there was Leylandii in the friend's garden, but I've worked several pieces of that recently, and the smell was wrong. The smell was very, very strong, sweet and reminded me of sherbet. I've smelt something very similar, and think that it's pitch-pine.
I mounted it between centres and turned the speed right down....
After turning a spigot and cutting the basic shape between centres, I secured it in the chuck and started turning in earnest. The biggest problem was a lump of flint embedded deep in the wood, which cost me a few minutes at the grinder.
Hollowing out went fairly well and the wood cut quite easily. I tried a range of tools on it, from a bowl gouge to a heavy scraper and to a big hollowing tool that I borrowed from Mid Wales Woodturner's library of resources. What ever I used cut well and gave a reasonable finish. I managed to get the wall down to about 6mm, but really didn't fancy going any thinner as bits were beginning to fly off!
Finishing was done with Abranet and lots of lemon-oil for the outside, with 40mm discs in an electric drill with the lathe spindle locked for the inside. The finish is very flat, not quite satin but a little fuller than a matt finish.
It was reverse chucked on a dolly with a soft rag on it to skim the bottom off, I'll endorse the bottom of it before it leaves the workshop and it will get a few more oilings, but I don't expect the finish to change much. Overall size is 150mm x 150mm (6" x 6")
Comments and criticisms always welcome...Les
