Turning Eucalyptus?

[sooty]

Hi I have been given two pieces of eucalyptus from a tree that blown down by the recent winds.

Has anyone turned any of this? if so whats it like to turn? i.e. Does it cut easily, Is it prone to cracking, Can you get a good finish on the wood.

Phil

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Phil. have you tried the search facility using Eucalyptus as the key word?

 

[Mezza]

Hi Sooty

Well I can't say I can help you much on this but I have been turning my first practice bobbins this week and one of them happened to be eucalyptus so maybe this will give you an idea.

Mez[/img]

 

[PowerTool]

Very nice,Mez - what size is it ? (I'm guessing "small")

Andrew

 

[Mezza]

Hi Andrew

Its just short of 5 " which is a nice size considering I did no measuring.


Mez

 

[Argee]

Hi I have been given two pieces of eucalyptus from a tree that blown down by the recent winds.

The only saving grace is the time of year - no rising sap yet. However, these trees usually run extremely "wet" and a great deal of their weight is liquid. for this reason, drying the wood out is nearly impossible for bowl blanks or anything sizeable.

Has anyone turned any of this? if so whats it like to turn? i.e. Does it cut easily, Is it prone to cracking, Can you get a good finish on the wood.

Turns easily, but moves all over the place. I've not achieved any sort of decent finish with it. Firewood (if you can get it to burn!), IMO.

Ray.

 

[sooty]

Thanks for the replies, will look forward to having a play with it when the weather gets a little warmer.

Probably try a small piece in the microwave for my first attempt?

 

[Russell]

I was given some about 4 years ago never seen so much stress in timber before it literally tore it self apart in about 5 months in a coll environment out of the sun. I have seen some nice work with eucalyptus burrs but not a lot else. Good luck

 

[Bodrighy]

'Scuse the photo. This is a practice piece I did,it's in eucalyptus. Harvested about 6 months ago it's been in my kitchen since then as a log and no shakes or cracks visible.

 

[Flyer]

I have turned Eucalyptus. I found it to lack figure so it wasn't attractive. I don't have pictures but I made bowls about 8 inches diameter.
It turned well and the chisels had to be kept very sharp. I finished them with a varnish with no problems.
I also turned weed pots and painted them with 6 - 7 coats, sanding in between. The paint was left to dry for some time then finally buffed with automotive buffing products; the gloss achieved was excellent. The weed pots were popular because they were heavy.