I’m a newbie that’s still leaning and making loads of mistakes though less and less as time goes by.
I recently turned a small lump of rather dry spalted sycamore, I had loads of trouble with torn grain at both ends where the spalting was. I understand that this can be the norm with spalting, it was like polystyrene, very crumbly but smooth in the other areas.
I re-sharpened my gouges but no improvement, I doused the ends with sanding sealer which also didn’t make any improvement, I worked the gouge in both directions just in case the wood wanted me to, but it was still pants.
I was just about to give up and set fire to it when I decided to sand it through the grits starting at 120 and ending with 400 and that worked – I don’t understand why abrasive worked but a sharp gouge didn’t!
It has been suggested to me that the better result from using the abrasives was probably due to the wood fibres being compressed as I applied the paper, rather than being lifted when I used the re-sharpened gouge, which makes a lot of sense.
I know that some turners use thin super glue to help ‘stabilise’ soft timber but it has also been suggest that I use Ronseal wood hardener.
My question has anyone used this product and what sort of results have you had please? I understand from reading about Ronseal wood hardener that it takes 2 hours to dry which seems rather restrictive.
Many thanks,
Dancie.