Wee bit o' sweet gum, incoming toy

Ryan Mooney

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Guy at work had a sweet gum taken down (tired of the burrs) and shockingly no one wanted any for fire wood (ok maybe not that shocking, ever tried to split that stuff :eek: :bonkers:)

24" bar on the chainsaw for scale :D

IMG_1788.jpg

The largish pile of shavings was from chainsawing 3 of the blocks in half.

So far I've turned two rough outs from it (about 16" across and 6-8" tall), turns pretty good, although it is indeed a bit like taking a shower while turning it (keeps you cool at least :D). Ended up with 3 wheelbarrow loads of curlies from that - the yard will be well mulched soon and they I guess time to start in on the neighbors :D

After getting through the first two bowls I ordered a new Thompson 5/8" V gouge. Should be here maybe by the end of the week :woot:
 
I turned some gum last year and I didn't mind the moisture too bad until I realized some of it was from the grubs in the wood. Another good reason I bought a face shield! I thought the gum would be far nastier and more problematic to turn than it was. I won't hesitate to turn more.

Have fun!

Hu
 
I've turned a bit of that. The firewood lot guy who gave it to me called it liquidambar. Very nice stuff to turn, and it finishes well with it's dry, too. :thumb:

And congrats on the new gouge. You're gonna love it!
 
We have a lot of gum in our area and I always check when I hear a chainsaw to see if someone is taking one down. The big ones sometimes have a lot of dark colored heartwood that is beautiful....they call it red gum...I grab it when I can.
 
Ted: this one doesn't have much heartwood which was surprising considing the size. The bigger rounds were pushing 24" across but they only had maybe 1-2" of heartwood in the center. I do agree that the smidge of heartwood it had was pretty striking, not sure what the rest look like dried (I see some speckling here and there starting on the ones I've started drying) but they're pretty white starting out.

Hu: luckily no worms in this one (yet) although there were a large number of centipedes in the bark. I know the centipedes here aren't like the biting ones in HI but they still give me the willies.

I've been quite pleased with how well it turns all right, will be fun to watch it as it goes.


Eagerly awaiting my new gouge... ...
 
Got a big one laying in the yard now waiting on me to mill it. I've been told I'll need to park the truck on the pile because it likes to twist and move a lot! Actually I've got several things to mill, but they keep getting pushed down the list.
 
Thompson first thoughts.

Well the Thompson 5/8 V was in when I got home from work. First I went out and hung the shower curtain behind where I stand at the lath, definitely worth the time - where there would normally be ~4" of curlies on my jointer it was plumb clean :thumb: (well except a couple that flew over top.. but still 99.999% better).

Then started roughing out the outside of a bowl. Realize that my only other real bowl gouges have been a 3/8, 1/2, and 5/8 Benjamins Best so my comparison set is pretty small.

The flute is a bit deeper than the BB. This seems to make it want to shoot the shavings straight back at me just a bit more than the BB did. I was able to mitigate that a bit by playing around with the presentation but was still more shavinged than usual. I think the BB's are somewhat between the Thompson V and the U looking at the profiles.

Noticeably less vibration, especially in roughing cuts. This alone is worth it if you're doing rough bowls - not feeling like you've been clubbed with a 9 iron after a day of turning is nice! This might also be somewhat due to the better handle (I got one of the Thompson handles while I was at it). In some ways I like the look of the action on the Serious cam lock handles but decided to get the Thompson for two reasons: first its more "streamlined" around the handle->gouge transition whereas the serious handle has a big cutoff there and second I was already placing an order with Thompson :D. Not sure if the shape will really matter because your hand isn't really there much unless you've pushed the gouge in and are choked way up on it somehow.. but I liked the look anyway. I suspect that the steel is also a bit less bouncy but can't quantify that. Having a new gouge that has more length also helps of course because leverage.

The Thompson has noticeably more "usable flute" than the BB did new.

I was definitely generating a higher percentage of sawdust to shavings compared to the stuff I was producing on the weekend. There are several possible causes for this outside of the tool itself: wood is a bit drier (and the sawdust % seemed to drop off some as I got into the meat of the bowl where it wasn't as dry), I might have set the rest a smidge lower, and finally I'm still adjusting my presentation/grind with the new gouge (I've decide I like the wings swept back a bit more and a lot less heal than the stock grind) and saw some improvement from that as I went. On the flip side of that I'd say the quality of the cut was generally at least as good and in some orientations seems perhaps a bit better. I'd expect that to improve as I get used to it.

Once I got rolling with it it definitely seems easier to take a bigger bite with the Thompson. In fact have to be a bit careful with that... I bogged the lathe down a couple of times :eek: (granted this was turning a largish piece pretty slow so easier to bog down at that). Once I get it rolling though pealing off a 3/8" deep slice didn't seem that hard. It also seemed to be a bit sweeter with the sheer scraping cut, I somewhat attribute that to the edge retention characteristics (the BB would rapidly loose its edge with a lot of sheer scraping).

I did take it to the grinder twice but that was more just to adjust the shape/grind a smidge. I could feel a bit of difference after the second touch so it does still dull some. It seems that the dulling curve is different though. Whereas the BB would get dull and just keep getting duller the Thompson seems to loose the really crisp edge almost as fast and then holds at that point for a longer time (how much longer I dunno as I haven't turned with it long enough to really see a huge change). Note that the slightly less than perfect edge is still more than adequately sharp although I might end up touching it for really clean finish cuts sometimes.. maybe...

You get a really nice set of pictures of all of the gouge flute profiles in a brochure with the gouge. Doug needs to get that up on his website!

Overall :headbang: :bounce: :woot:
Its a heck of a gouge!
 
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Glad to see you liked the Thompson gouge, Ryan. :thumb: I agree with your observation about how the "brand new" edge wears off pretty quickly, but the "plenty sharp" edge holds for much longer than any other gouges I've used.
 
I agree with your observation about how the "brand new" edge wears off pretty quickly, but the "plenty sharp" edge holds for much longer than any other gouges I've used.

Glad to hear its not just in my head :D I haven't really turned enough with it to say where that "plenty sharp" wears off, longer than it takes to rough the outside of a 16" bowl though; I can say that much.

I'm also wondering if I honed it a smidge after the grinder if it would stay "somewhat sharper" longer as well, I suspect from the looks of it that the transition is at least partially the bur getting worn off. That's getting into the noodling though and imho not really worth it except as an academic excercise (never stopped me before!)
 
Glad to hear its not just in my head :D I haven't really turned enough with it to say where that "plenty sharp" wears off, longer than it takes to rough the outside of a 16" bowl though; I can say that much.

I'm also wondering if I honed it a smidge after the grinder if it would stay "somewhat sharper" longer as well, I suspect from the looks of it that the transition is at least partially the bur getting worn off. That's getting into the noodling though and imho not really worth it except as an academic excercise (never stopped me before!)

When I notice I'm having to push or force my cuts, I know my gouge is starting to get dull. How long it lasts for sure varies with each piece of wood. I generally use 4 gouges together, and usually sharpen them all at the same time. If the one I'm using gets dull, I'll usually just grab another even if it means switching from a 'V' to a 'U' or a 1/2" to a 5/8". With that set of four, I've roughed out two large sycamore bowls without needing to sharpen. But on the other hand, I've had a single small piece of manzanita require four trips to the grinder (with all four gouges).

It seemed to me when I started sharpening my gouges on the Tormek, the "new" sharpness seemed to last a bit longer that it did when I was using my 120 grit dry grinder. (Might have all been in my head.) But that's just sharpening with the Tormek wet wheel (~400 grit). I didn't notice any tangible benefit to spending the extra time with the leather honing wheel.
 
When I notice I'm having to push or force my cuts, I know my gouge is starting to get dull.

I call it "having to work at it" :thumb: I find that true of most any cutting tool, if you have to work at it you're either using it wrong or its not sharp enough or both (at least for the specific use).

It seemed to me when I started sharpening my gouges on the Tormek, the "new" sharpness seemed to last a bit longer that it did when I was using my 120 grit dry grinder. (Might have all been in my head.) But that's just sharpening with the Tormek wet wheel (~400 grit). I didn't notice any tangible benefit to spending the extra time with the leather honing wheel.

That matches about what I'd expect from experiences with other tools and looking at the edge. I have a couple of gouge slips I mostly use for carving gouges. I tried them on the BB, and while it was plausibly useful for a touchup it certainly wasn't a very effective use of time.

The multiple gouges theory is interesting. I can definitely see it being worth while for production turning.
 
...The multiple gouges theory is interesting. I can definitely see it being worth while for production turning.

It started out as me just wanting variety as opposed to thinking about production. I tend to use them all together because I'm lazy about sharpening, lol. The main four are 1/2" V and U, and 5/8" V and U. I've also got a 3/4" V that I use mostly for roughing. It's a beast and I have it in a heavy handle.
 
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