Nice piece of 20+ year old Olive

Chas, Olive is certainly a lovely wood. I don't know how well it it works but I have a fully dried chunk big enough for a bowl and some in my stash. Nice bowl.
 
Chas, Olive is certainly a lovely wood. I don't know how well it it works but I have a fully dried chunk big enough for a bowl and some in my stash. Nice bowl.

Alex if it is well dried it is very easy to turn, not difficult to get a good finish straight from the tool needing little aftercare, that piece had been sitting in a shed as a square covered all over in wax for some years and was below 10% and appears stable.

Wet Olive is easy to turn but can be very corrosive on tools if not cleaned up immediately, I personally it find unpleasant to handle, it is apt to distort considerably as it dries, so any idea of precise form is out.
 
chas, good looking piece and an interesting wood as well.

but i was blown away when i went to your gallery site. somewhere over 400 pics of work you've done in the last several years. amazing. a great assortment of shapes and wood species to see there with first class workmanship. as a newbie still struggling with the basics i can only look forward to acquiring the skills to do some of these pieces. i managed to blow up a small vase the other day and bend my parting tool in the process...that's where i'm at. but each mistake is a learning point, i am told.

keep the photos coming...
 
....... i went to your gallery site. somewhere over 400 pics of work you've done in the last several years. ....

Yes it was just about 3 years ago my first cheapy lathe was introduced to the shed, only ever turned bits of wood on a metal working lathe before that if I ever needed a handle or the like.

After a few hours frightening myself trying to use some grotty pine to practise, spread over a couple of months when I had little shed time, I mounted a tatty bit of spalted beech and a few minutes later a dumpy vase like shape appeared, been addicted ever since.

Don't do anything fancy that would require too much input from me, just go and spin some time away and try and walk back to the house with something usable.
 
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