Hi there,
Well, it's Friday night and I decided I'd try to write something here, even if it's only an update on what I've been doing lately.
I finished my new lathe stand tonight. My old one was built with my older mini-lathe in mind and it was much too light-weight for my newer midi lathe. It was made with pine 2 X 2's for the legs and they were quite wobbly at times. So, I used yellow pine 2 x 4's for the legs and frame on the new one and it made a big difference. It's heavier and much more solid feeling. I haven't turned on it yet but I'm getting ready to finish a bowl I started the other day. Here's a picture of my new lathe stand.

As you can see, I put a drawer on this one and added a couple of wings on the sides to hold the smaller chisels and drive centers, live centers, chuck tools, etc. I think the chisel holders are a little low but I don't think it will be a problem. The PVC pipe makes real good holders for my lathe chisels. I also have a small slanted shelf above the chisels for miscellaneous stuff. There's a stop on the back to keep things from sliding off. I think this will make a big difference when I'm turning larger items. I'm also curious about setting the lathe to the higher speeds as it tended to vibrate a bit on the old stand, to the point where I didn't like going above 1300 rpm. Hopefully this will eliminate that vibration and it will feel more comfortable using the lathe at 2600 and 3200 rpm.



Also, I have an update on an earlier post on drying rough turned bowls. So far my method of using the oven to speed up drying of my rough turned bowls has worked real well without any problems at all. I usually do a heat cycle every night where I set the oven to 250 degrees and put my bowls, in paper bags, in the oven on the top rack which is roughly in the center of the oven. When the oven finishes preheating I turn it off and let the bowls sit in the heat as the oven cools down. When they're cool I weigh them and record the weight. I usually see a weight loss of anywhere from .02 ounces to a couple of ounces with each cycle. Right now I have three bowls in the drying process. One Hemlock bowl which was extremely wet when rough turned is almost dry, as is one of Sour Cherry. The other one is a Rainbow Poplar bowl/platter that still has a way to go. I keep going through the heat cycle until I see no weight loss for 3 consecutive heat cycles. Then it's ready to finish turning. I just finished turning(except the bottom) a bowl of Walnut Crotch wood that really turned out beautifully. I usually wait until I have 3 or 4 to this point with the top finished and then change the chuck jaws to the large flat jaws to turn the bowls upside down and finish turning and polishing the bottoms. Here's a picture of the finished top of the Walnut Crotch wood bowl. Crotch wood, by the way, is where two or more branches come together (or branch apart depending on how you look at it) which cause some beautiful figure and sometimes some spectacular grain feathering. This one has a 3-D effect in the grain, though the pictures don't do it justice.











Well, that's about all I have for now. I'll try to post something again next weekend and be a bit more regular at this, but you never know.
Larry

I've been negligent!

Well, here I am sitting here guilty of the heinous act of BLOG NEGLECT! Perhaps I wasn't ready to be a blogger. However, I will attempt to press on. I have a little something I typed up a couple of weeks ago, an idea I had quite while ago. I hope it is at least a little interesting.

Note: The picture inset below is of a bowl made of Cocobolo(dalbergia retusa), a beautiful member of the rosewood family from Central America.

A Rosewood By Any Other Name

"Wow, that's a beautiful piece! What kind of wood is it?" "Rosewood"... "What kind of rosewood?"... Then comes that blank "deer in the headlights" stare.
At times you may hear someone say, "that's rosewood" or "I want it made from rosewood" These statements invite the all important question, which rosewood?

The name rosewood can cover many different woods from all over the world. Some woods that are called rosewood aren't really rosewood at all, and some true rosewoods are commonly known as something other than rosewood.

True rosewoods are members of the dalbergia family. Some of the more common rosewoods are East Indian Rosewood (more recently referred to as simply Indian Rosewood) (Dalbergia latifolia), Brazilian Rosewood(Dalbergia nigra) and Honduras Rosewood(Dalbergia stevensonii), but there are many others.
There are also a number of true rosewoods that aren't commonly called rosewood. There's Cocobolo(Dalbergia retusa)(though it is sometimes referred to as cocobolo rosewood), African Kingwood(Dalbergia cearensis) and African Blackwood(Dalbergia melanoxylon) to name just a few.
Then there are those woods that are called rosewood but aren't true rosewoods at all. One of the most common of these is Bolivian Rosewood(Machaerium schleroxylon)which is also known as Pau Ferro or Morado. There is also Patagonian Rosewood, also known as Cebil (Anadenanthera collubrina), Caribbean Rosewood(Metopium brownie) and Guyana Rosewood(Swartzia Leiocalycina) to name a few.
I'm not disparaging any of these woods and I am by no means an expert on rosewood species or any wood, for that matter. I merely wanted to point out that there is a common misunderstanding of the term rosewood which can easily lead to confusion in some cases. Just remember that the term, rosewood, can cover a wide variety of very different woods, and do yourself a favor, if you're curious do some research, even a simple internet search and you'll be surprised what you can find. And remember that rosewood, by any other name, can still make a beautiful piece of work.

Larry Clinton
August 21, 2010
mlcwoodworks.com