se7enthdevil

give me a couple of pics of the timber and i should be able to i.d. it fo you.

alec's right, for one that small it's bet to get the most out of it. never knew it was so stable though... you learn something every day...

probably just a heavy bit of pitch pine. a species known as longleaf or slash pine is pinus palustris weighing about 670kg/m3. should be yellowy orange and resinious. the grain is straight and is one of the heaviest comercial softwoods with the heaviest bits peing sold as picth pine which marries up perfectly with your measurements...

give me some good quality pics of the side face and end grain and i'll do my best to i.d it for you. since it was outside is it wet or dry??? to get a true weight reading leave it inside for a couuple of weeks then re-weigh.

oh yeah, forgot about those. british engineering at it's best. seeing as i mentioned marlow rowing club because its ancient i should also say dorney lake where we won out first gold (and many more) in the olympics.

those turners are the ones that give the rest of us a bad name. being offered free wood is all well and good but i'll always try and make that kind person a bowl or goblet to thank them

never thought i lived anywhere interesting or historic but come to think of it im a stones throw from, windsor castle legoland eton college ascot rase course marlow rowing club clivden house hotel maidenhead railway station i live in taplow by the way

its on a dry bit of monkey puzzle (damp on surface) and there are a dozen patches. i'll look up some insect eggs but i didnt think the top parts look big enough to contain a larva. the stalks are hair thin.

any ideas????

as nice as they are i would expect a little more for my money at that price... in saying that i'll alway use wood rather than a man made board. rob d, your boards are really nice on ebay and i've nearly bought a couple. do you have any decent sections of whitebeam left???

i think two groups of hobbyists and pro's arnt enough. you get green woodworkers, ones who only like seasoned wood but you also get ones who like both. personaly it's nice to have a stable bit of wood on your lathe but if there is sufficient colour or figure then i'll happily take a soaking wet bit too. nepias right about the splitting for slightly larger bits, for the ones which have large radial shrinkage you need to take the tension out. these would include box, laburnum, strawbery tree, laurel, yew and others that we all learn about as time goes by. by the way size isnt everything, the good looking woods are usualy the small ones and lots of us are hapy to make goblets out of 3-4" branchwood. if you get box, keep every branch.

my goodness! a tree surgeon who wants to keep stuff out of the chipper!!!!! your a rare breed my friend, i only hope more follow in your footsteps. whatever you save, imediatly seal the ends and put a date on it so you know when it was cut... in answer to your question, it depends on the turner realy. just speaking for myself i'd like to turn anything that i've never had before. as far as interesting looking woods go it usualy depends on the tree's growing conditions and the species. im probably biased because i like all timbers but you might want to save things like, laburnum, plum, box, tree of heaven, paulownia, magnolia, laurel, rhododendron, white beam, rowan, juniper, catalpa, holly, pear, judas and so on. basicaly anything that yeilds a hard woody structure that we call timber. in my opinion there are so many trees that are overlooked for timber, these include liquidambar, true cedars, leylandii, most pines are all good timber trees if large enough. i wish that most trees were milled rather than turned in to firewood as the bi product from the milling should be what goes on the fire not the whole tree. as a rule if your thinking of saving things from the chipper then if it isnt oak, ash, beech, sweet chestnut, pine or any other main timber tree then save it if you can. if anything is overly colourful, figured or burred then save that too.

all depends on size and quality but in my opinion all burrs are worth saving and can turn out quite beautiful in the right hands... slackblader is usually after burrs

fake musical forest project in reality...

hi j, what price per cubic foot did the sycamore sell at. i've got some that is heavily rippled but greyish. it could still be used for brightly coloured stained guitar tops but am not sure what price i should be asking. any ideas???

buggar me alec, i thought it might be colourfull but thats bleedin gorgeous... i dare'nt show my sister or she'll want it back... nice milling too

you seal the ends with any thing that willl serve as a sealer really. could be paint, varnish, sanding sealer, PVA or purpose made sealers. as long as it has a coat or two of something that sticks to it then it will inhibit the transfer of moisture so it drys better with less cracking...

dont like M.P. myself, it's too much hardwork for very little result. any wood can be turned thin with out it going titsup as long as you know what you are doing. getting the walls of a dish or platter down to 3-4mm takes alot of practise but is very satisfying when you pull it off. im sure lime burr is fine for turning as long as its solid. just about anything burr or straight grained is ok to turn as long as you know how to tackle each piece.

if they are white underneath and look like your classic toadstool (think kids book) then it could be "flyagarec" (spelling help please)

length??? seal the ends pronto

there is a cotoneaster that is about 9" diameter at the base and there are 3-4 stems from the same plant. dont get the impression that woodturners want free wood all the time, it's nice on occasion if someone wants shot of it but we're quite happy to pay 20-30 quid for a 3'-4' length for something thats a foot in diameter as long as its interesting. i cant speak for other turners but to me intersting timbers are just the ones that you dont see everyday. for me they include, magnolia, laburnum, strawberry tree, pagoda, judas, cotoneaster, rowan, service tree, whitebeam, tree of heaven, juniper, mulberry, robinia, golden raintree, box elder, boxwood, field maple, elder, holm oak, laurel, paulownia, catalpa, ginko, hazel, hop hornbeam, fig, holly and any odd exotic tree that a council has put in the park and no longer wants. .

very hard to predict and depends on the age of the tree and its growing conditions. i've hade some beech that has had 100 years in 5" and another bit of 5" that was 24years. they were from the same tree and were obviously young and old growth parts but it just shows the variation you can get. i've no info to recomend but one thing i might suggest is measure its girth now and then in a years time, then a year after that, and so on. do this for about 5 years and you should get an aproxamation of its growth rate. .

if there is any cotoneaster of meritable size (8"+) it is of interest to us woodturner's. can everyone get away fron the idea that everything under 18" is either firewood or food for chippers... .

my axminster extractor is a good littkle machine but the strap that holds the lower bag on is crap, a bit of nylon that stretched. the bodge was, i saved one of my old 1/2" bandsaw blades, ground the teeth off and used that instead. .

big j's right it's deffinatly european oak. and the pack price he can sell it at is very cheap. he's currently selling 1cubic metre for £900, thats £25.50 perft3. where else can you get oak at that price other than off the continent...