Learning the Turning #22

Shake, Rattle and Roll

It's disconcerting when a piece of heavy burl detaches itself from the chuck and chases you around the room.  Steel-capped boots will not keep you from playing jump-rope with a wild and wooly blank spinning around the floor at 2000 RPM.

Eventually I caught it under the bandsaw base and it reluctantly returned to my hand.

This piece is from a highly figured piece of Australian wood -- Victorian Ash burl, I believe.  It's heavily flawed, has a bit of live edge (as you can see) and what you can't see is that the wood was harder than the hubs of hell.  I felt like I was turning iron, not wood.  I sanded it up to 1200 grit and the surface looked like glass when I was done.  My wife says it's gorgeous, I say it's rather nice.

Two days to turn a single bowl.  I may not be specialising in burl, Going back to a nice couple of pieces of camphor laurel I have next.