Grain direction? | American Association of Woodturners

What woodturner can drive by a downed tree without thinking, "Hmmm, turning end grain wood turning zone While experienced turners use features such as knots and eccentric growth end grain wood turning zone of branches to great advantage, those features can cause blanks and wooc turnings to crack or warp excessively.

So when selecting wood for turning blanks, avoid limb wood and look instead for trunk logs with minimal knots. Because the ends of a log start to dry immediately after cutting, seal them right away to avoid checking. Use a commercial green-wood sealer. Available from Packard Woodworks. These sealers clean zlne with water, dry clear, and are superior to paraffin, which can flake wopd, and paint, which may require several coats for a good seal.

If there is checking on an old unsealed end, make a fresh crosscut to expose an unchecked surface; seal it immediately. Leave the logs in long yet manageable lengths until you are ready to cut them into turning blanks.

This limits potential checking and grakn to just the two ends of the log rather than both ends of multiple blank-length sections. Leave tight bark in place. Bark slows moisture loss, helps prevent checking, and leaves the option of using the stock for a natural-edge vessel.

When ready to cut blanks, saw the log into sections about 4" longer than its diameter. This way, if you find any checking after sealing and storing the blank, you'll have ample stock to trim from both ends, exposing check-free surfaces. When chainsawing a log section lengthwise end grain wood turning zone form bowl blanks, lay the log on its side, and support it to prevent rolling.

Cut along the grain, as shown above. Do not stand the section on its end and cut across the end grain. Doing that takes longer and can overheat and dull the chain.

At the center of a log is the original tree stem, called the pith, surrounded by a zone End Grain Wood Turning Zero of very unstable wood. You'll usually be able to recognize this unstable zone by a change in wood-grain color. The size of this zone varies more with wood species than log diameter.

Because this unstable wood may cause uneven drying and splitting, remove it. To end grain wood turning zone the pith and a large-diameter unstable zone around it, draw lines with a permanent marker to guide your end grain wood turning zone. When slicing log sections with a small-diameter unstable zone 1" or less into turning blanks, make your cut through the pith. For End Grain Wood Turning Data log sections with a larger-diameter zone, remove additional wood adjacent End Grain Wood Turning Games to the pith, as shown below.

To guide you when removing the unstable zone from a log section of irregular shape, draw potential bowl shapes on its end, as shown below right.

Irregular-shape logs often yield more than two bowl blanks. It is helpful to draw potential bowl shapes arrayed around the pith before slicing the log into blanks. Not all log sections must be sliced lengthwise to make bowl blanks. You can leave some log sections whole for turning end-grain bowls, which allows you to get the largest possible bowl from a given diameter log. Be warned: End grain is more difficult to turn than face grain, and end-grain bowls have a greater tendency to crack than face-grain bowls.

Apply sealer to the blank ends with an inexpensive 3" brush. When processing large quantities of stock at the same time, speed the task by using a paint roller. Seal the end grain end grain wood turning zone blanks, as shown above. If the wood is particularly prone graain drying stress, such as some fruitwoods, coat the entire piece.

When the sealer dries, mark each blank, as shown below. Because the sealer leaves a end grain wood turning zone surface, mark blanks that will be completely coated before applying the sealer.

Store blanks off the ground in a dry, well-ventilated area. When the sealer dries, use a permanent marker to label each bowl blank on an uncoated surface, identifying the zonee and the date it was end grain wood turning zone. With an old handscrew hurning and some scraps of hardwood, you can set up your thickness planer to Skip to main content.

From Trees to Turning Blanks. If a tree falls in the forest or your neighborhoodcan you salvage it for turning stock? Here we'll show you how to make quality bowl blanks from a promising log.

Preparing the log What woodturner can drive by a downed tree without thinking, "Hmmm, turning stock! Facebook Pinterest Twitter Text. Printer-friendly version. What's the best way to cut acrylics and plastics? Introduction To Cold-Bend Hardwood. Hidden Gems at the Home Center. Air-drying lumber is more than a matter of time. For more related content, subscribe to our newsletter! How To Mortise Box Hinges.

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Jan 04,  · Turning end grain would mean placing a log between centers and cutting the "bark" side of the log. (I know you should remove the bark before placing the log on the lathe for safety reasons.) The inds would be at the drive cener and tailstock. Turning side grain would be ripping the log and having the end grain facing away from the centers. Nov 16,  · When feasable, adding strips of wood to the end grain (gluing or tongue and grooving) will hide it and solve the problem. This is not always possible, of course. Also, a commercial solution to even staining, it you’re doing an “on top of the wood finish” is to put the stain in your finish–i.e. tinted lacquer, varnish, etc.

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