Size of Pieces for Turning

First, I am not a turner and know nothing about it.

My question is, as I'm cutting back and cutting down some stuff in the jungle, better known as my yard, how big (diameter? length) does a piece have to be for it to be useable for a turner?

Also, since I read a lot about turners working on green wood, what if something is standing and dead? Thoroughly completely dead....will turners turn something that's dead?

Also, what if it's something that's a wood I've never seen/heard talked about like a burl on a Magnolia or some such oddity.

And BTW, no, I'm not cutting down everything, just a few things to, say, see out the window. :D :rofl:

Just want to know if I should save any interesting bits for Secret Santa....
:D ;)
 
Cynithia Simple answer yes we turn all most anything.:D I've known people that turn pieces so small that they can't be seen hardly. And others that turn monster pieces.I think from what i've seen that on average Folks like blanks 12 to14". As far as any burl there just junk, so go ahead and send them down here and i'll get rid of them for ya.:D My adress is.........:rofl:
Steve
 
Steve's pretty much summed things up. If it's wood, most turners will give it a try. Wet, dry, live, dead, whatever...if it's wood (or at least similar) it's worth a shot.

However, with all due respect, I'd hate to see you spend the extra money shipping those useless burls all the way to Tennessee. California is so much closer to your side of Canada. :p
 
And since I'm closer to the border than Vaughn...it will save you more money to ship it to me!:rofl::rofl:. My lathe is a mini, so a max size for me is 9.5". Guessing my average is about 6-8" for a bowl and 3" for a box.
 
It depends on the bed of the lathe size Cynthia. There are lathes out there that can handle 5 ft bowl. My lathe can handle 16 inch inboard and 29 inch out board. Green wood turns the best with huge curlies coming off the lathe at a fantastic pace and with woods like Arbutus and it is the only way to turn it as it changes shape afterwards. I have tried to turn dead wood but have found lots of punky pieces and have had bowls blow up in my face. Shrubs can be turned and small branches too. That is the best part of turning. the best wood come from the bush and it is mostly "free" ( my favorite word) you don't waste much of anything. When I got my lathe I was going through my wood pile and all the scrap wood from my shop and such was fair game for turning now I am am turning everything. Lots of fun. Small branches become mushrooms or small goblets. Small blocks of dried wood can be glued up to make wonderful bowls and plates or in chucks case mugs. If you don't like what you have made it can be reduced in size and re turned or it is fire wood. The wood chips are great for the garden ( except some forms of hard wood like walnut). Burls are wonderful growths on the side of trees, Croth wood is wild to turn with the grains going everywhere,
 
Vaughn is right. We will turn it in most any condition. I have cut cottonwood and ash that was still standing that had no bark. Depends on the lathe size as to what you size you want to cut the blanks.
 
I just got thru cutting up and discarding (firewood pile) or keeping a bunch of dried wood another turner gave me. Speaking on the dry out woods I got......... I looked over each one and alot of them had deep cracks and some bad spots that I knew would not hold during turning. I used my chain saw and cut them down to either firewood size or into turning blanks. The wood that I keep is crack free - voids and inclusions can add interest to a pc though if not to bad....
Its hard to say what someone will want to turn - some turn pens in which case you can come by my house and stock up.............LOL . Others will turn bowls, vessels, spindles etc -
Then one thing I did is to create a pile of small sealed blanks for pens or very small turnings and ship them off to a friend or someone that does small objects - they will love to get them - flat shipping is cheap.

Personally, I do mostly just vessels now a days so my scrap pile is large and growing.
 
Inboard is what I can turn over the lathe bed. Outboard is what I can turn with the head stock turned away from the bed. The Nova head stock can almost swivel around 360 so i can work anywhere I want around the lathe with out worrying about reverse turning.
 

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Inboard is what I can turn over the lathe bed. Outboard is what I can turn with the head stock turned away from the bed. The Nova head stock can almost swivel around 360 so i can work anywhere I want around the lathe with out worrying about reverse turning.

What is reverse turning, and why is it important? Following the picture, why is it okay to stand in front of it when the head stock is turned, but not okay when the head stock is parallel to the bed? I don't understand why the swivel is important?
 
What is reverse turning, and why is it important? Following the picture, why is it okay to stand in front of it when the head stock is turned, but not okay when the head stock is parallel to the bed? I don't understand why the swivel is important?

with a regular lathe if you put the work peice on the other side facing out it will spin in the opposite direction so you have to stand on the other side of the lathe or work fom the other side of the turn to work the piece. It is not good to lean over any machine to do work. the swivel head just makes things easier. I am sure that vaughn and others can add to the explination
 
What is reverse turning, and why is it important? Following the picture, why is it okay to stand in front of it when the head stock is turned, but not okay when the head stock is parallel to the bed? I don't understand why the swivel is important?

Reverse on a lathe is handy for a few things. On some pieces of wood, you can get better results when sanding if you change the direction of the spin as you work your way through the various sandpaper grits. In other cases, it's handy to be able to hold the tool on the other side of the workpiece, particularly for easier access to some parts on hollow forms. (Not a lot of turners do this, though.) Or on lathes where you can attach a piece to either the right side of the headstock (inboard) or the left side (outboard), being able to reverse the rotation is useful so you can still have the piece spinning in the familiar counter-clockwise direction.

Standing in "front" of a spinning piece is a bit of a misnomer. We try to avoid standing in line with the rotation, since that's where pieces will typically fly if something goes wrong. If I'm facing the top (or inside) of a bowl I'm generally in a safer place than if I'm standing in line with the edge of the bowl.
 
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