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Do I dare continue?

Don't know how much experience you have with using CA on bowls, but even the medium strength stuff will soak into the surrounding wood for a good distance from the crack and create a blemish around the crack on the finished product. I try to create a bottom backer and a top dam using blue painters tape to protect the area around the crack. If the bowl is thick when you fill the crack you can easily turn away the excess and there won't be a problem. Precautions help if you are near finished wall thickness.
 
Ted Calver said:
Don't know how much experience you have with using CA on bowls, but even the medium strength stuff will soak into the surrounding wood for a good distance from the crack and create a blemish around the crack on the finished product. I try to create a bottom backer and a top dam using blue painters tape to protect the area around the crack. If the bowl is thick when you fill the crack you can easily turn away the excess and there won't be a problem. Precautions help if you are near finished wall thickness.
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I was going to mention something along those lines, but forgot to. I've noticed, though, that if I'm using an oil-based finish, it also discolors (darkens) the wood in a similar manner as the CA, so the blemishes tend to disappear.
 
After examining the crack very closely I found I was able to “move” the wood pretty easily. So I decided to just abandon this piece and start over again on something else.


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Sounds like a good call, Tom. :thumb: I suspect you may find similar cracks in any of the blanks from this batch. As was mentioned upthread, it's very common for full blanks to crack when drying. It's a lot easier to control (limit) the cracking on a rough-turned green bowl than it is to keep it in check (no pun intended) on an unturned blank.
 
OK OK...the universe is telling me to stop using this wood. I tried two more chunks of this stuff tonight and both of them were failures. One due to another crack and one to soft pukey wood inside....so I'm done with it. What makes me really mad is that I have stepped over and around this stuff sitting in my garage for the past 5-6 years. Lesson learned. For now on I cut and preserve any wood I get before I store it.
We are going camping later this summer......I'm going to enjoy watching this stuff burn! :bbq:
 
Every piece of Mulberry I've ever turned has cracked, sometimes two or three places... I've continued turning several - carefully - and succeeded in finishing the bowls... you can use a 2 part epoxy in the cracks, maybe color it and if you still have enough wood, turned away the slop on the edge of the crack and just leave the colored epoxy in the cracks for a design... people I sell to seem to love the filled bowls...

I start all of my bowls on a face plate as I don't trust between centers, worm screws or the interior holds on the chuck... I turn the outside shape of the bowl on the face place, including a 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 tenon on the bottom, then reverse to a four jaw chuck... I may or may not push the tailstock up, usually depending on the size of the bowl, but like Vaughn, I get the tailstock out of the way as soon as possible.

Keep in mind I'm an old hand at dodging flying bowls. :D:D:D:rofl:
 
Tom, you won't be the first among us to decide a load of turning wood had become firewood. I had a large load of oak that I got the day after the tree was taken down. I turned a few bowls from it and hated it...it warped like a Weird Al Yankovich album in an oven. I abandoned the idea of turning any more of it, but still had some BIG pieces of it in my driveway for a year or two, and they cracked badly just sitting there. I got lucky and traded a pickup load of almost dry oak for an equal amount of fresh flame box elder. One of my friends had salvaged the box elder from a construction site, with the plan to use it as firewood. I convinced him my oak would burn a lot better than his box elder, so we swapped woodpiles. :thumb:

Chuck Ellis said:
...Keep in mind I'm an old hand at dodging flying bowls. :D:D:D:rofl:
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As I recall, your dodging skills leave a bit to be desired. :whistling: :laugh2:
 
Yesterday I drove past about a 20" diameter river birch that had toppled during our last monsoon and thought about stopping to ask if it was available. Too much on my plate so I passed, but thought about how much free wood there is out there, particularly after a storm. Granted, these kind trees often have storm related defects, but there are still big unaffected pieces that are great turning stock. Tom, keep your eyes open:)
 
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