Wood blanks...............

Weg · 4 Mar 2015

Hi, first time on the forum and would like to say hello to everyone, my question is ,I have just cut down a Twisted Willow and a eucalyptus tree and these have now been cut to small blanks is this type of wood ok to use on a lathe as I understand certain types of wood are not suitable .......Cheers weg....

CHJ · 4 Mar 2015

Both species are of only limited use for turning.
Both species are difficult to dry, English grown Eucalyptus almost impossible even with the best practise applied.

Cutting into small blanks soon after harvesting is the worst case scenario in the first instance, if they have not been carefully sealed over the endgrain immediately they were cut then the risk of splitting will be compounded.

Expect small green blanks to reduce to kindling sized sections in short order I'm afraid.

Alexam · 4 Mar 2015

Chas, just a question about Eucalyptus. We had several trees which died off and were cut down to fence level, about 7' and just left there. Would they be good to harvest, or eventually rot off. Do trees that have died dry out like that after a few years They would be about 8-9" diameter ?

Alex

custard · 4 Mar 2015

I felled a Eucalyptus two years ago, I didn't bother with planking or bowl blanks as I don't rate it as a timber (at least not UK grown), so I chopped and split it up into 10" lengths for my woodturners.

Waste of time. Hard to light, doesn't give out much heat, goes out if you turn your back on it.

Alexam · 4 Mar 2015

No good for wood burners then :lol:

Sorry!

CHJ · 4 Mar 2015

Alex, I've never had experience of UK grown Eucalyptus that has died naturally to know if it would have dried out naturally without internal checking, I've had small 150mm stuff and great big 450mm dia stuff and all my attempts to dry it have resulted in massive internal hidden splits/checks which fooled me into storing it for several years thinking it was sound until such time I cut it up into blanks.

I believe others have managed to turn it green to very thin form and let it distort of its own accord with good results.

Personally it's a wood I don't have the time or patience to persevere with, the woodland stuff from just down the road gives me more than enough of a challenge for the time left in this life.