This was a real disappointment

One of my wife's photo blog friends up in CO trimmed a limb off her Lilac tree... the limb was about 4.5 inches x about 6 ft long... she was kind enough to offer it to me. I deleted her email with a picture of the limb before copying it to my wood picture file. She cut it and sent me 3 boxes of wood... a couple pieces are too small for PM's but I can cut for pen blanks...

Here is a mill I wanted to make as a thank you for the wood... it turned out nice, but I was too anxious to turn the wood and didn't allow it to dry enough... I roughed the bark off and then put it in DNA for about 3 days, but only allowed it to dry for a couple... after I drilled it, I tried the microwave for about 4 cycles, but since I don't have a MM, I used the old "feels dry to me" method, but evidently it wasn't ... my pepper mill is cracking all around the body.. very disappointing.. the wood is gorgeous.

There's no finish on the pepper mill yet.

I uploaded a couple of pictures to show the roughed limb just before I put it in the DNA....

That's a bummer Chuck.
Beautiful looking wood too!

Les

Thats to bad, Chuck. Beautiful wood too.

Well dang. Wood seems to be pretty fickle. Fortunately, the stuff grows on trees, huh?

Too bad you didn't wait. Lilac dries pretty quickly.

Frank Fusco said:

Too bad you didn't wait. Lilac dries pretty quickly.

Click to expand...

I'm waiting on the rest of the wood to dry... even an old dog will eventually learn..

That's a bummer Chuck. I have found lilac is a pretty cracky wood if not dried properly. I have found on the stuff I have turned it had better be dry (real dry) or it will crack.