Wood tear out question with sharp tools ?

Dan Mosley

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Location
Palm Springs, Ca
When i bought some equipment (bandsaw and tablesaw) at a buss. close out type sale the owner gave me a truck load of wood that was in a scrap pile. I brought it home, cut it up and glued it together to make a turning blank for the fun of it. However there were several problems i ran into with this type of wood.
with the face plate on it the screws just loosened up and the pc came flying off. To solve the problem i screwed it back on with more screws and used the tail stock to hold the other end......it worked......
however as i turned it (with sharp tools-Ci1 and sharp gouge) it made large pc's come off of it with very very bad tear outs all over it.
I think its the wood - very very light weight wood (used in making wood shutters for homes i think he said) ie....a bit heavier than balsa wood is a good comparison. i attached a picture here to see what anyone else thinks.
Ahhhhhhh well i guess i can use it for other stuff or firewood.....
 

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Dan, it seems to me there are some woods that just don't like to be cut cleanly. Soft punky woods are one of the worst for me, and it sounds like that's what you're dealing with. A lot of times you can get a much cleaner finish on this type of wood with a shearing cut with either a scraper or the flute of a gouge. Bill Grumbine's first bowl-making video has a good example of doing a shearing cut with a gouge.
 
Well, if you really like the wood and the eventual design is ingrained in your mind, you could cover it with a layer of thin AC glue. This will harden the outside, as you cut through the layer of glue, add another layer.
You say you added more screws. How many did you start with and how many did you go to? (I always try to use all of the holes) and bringing up the tailstock was a good move. I do that as I hate having wood bash me in the face or fly by! :eek:
 
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