Since I'm a woodturner on a budget, Im always looking for wood being piled up for the heavy trash guys to pick up. This morning I came across some and snagged it. Only I'm not sure what kind it is. My boss said he thinks it's Hackberry from the pics, but the the surface is smooth with no little knobbies scattered around. The wood is totally white. Any thoughts from the pics? It's the two large pieces, one of the left and one on the right shown below. One reason I grabbed it is every single piece had thin black lines of spalting on the cuts. I'm hoping these run throughout the wood. I got several pieces in various diameters.

Scott Wheeler wrote on 05/03/12 at 10:32:49:


Scott, I've already sealed the ends. I may end up turning a smaller piece this evening and if I do, i'll post a better pic of the guts. My first impression of this wood though was white, dryer than I thought it should be, and no visible growth rings at all. If not for the spalting, I probably wouldn't have even bothered picking it up. One sort of interesting thing is the smaller pieces (2"-4" diameter) were mostly dry rotted. I can only assume this tree has been dead for some time now and still standing in the ground until this past weekend. Which, wouldn't that create a perfect drying condition for the main trunk?...dead wood, no end grain to let moisture escape?...

Vaughn McMillan wrote on 05/03/12 at 11:07:33:


That was one of the possibilities. Yaupon, holly, magnolia were the results of my searching. I'm thinking without a leaf from the tree I may be up a creek without a lathe turned paddle...  (I'm okay). I'm not the most outgoing of people in the world so going up and knocking on a strangers door to ask what kind of wood that was they threw away was, doesn't particularly appeal to me, ya know?

That would be a massively large magnolia.  Had one 50 years old in my yard in Brooklyn and the main trunk was nowhere near that size.

JimQuarles wrote on 05/03/12 at 12:32:53:


Jim,

I haven't had a chance yet. I was late to work this morning just getting it loaded up and tied down to the hitch-rack on my Jeep. Although, lately I've turned a few vases (end grain) and have been working with the pith instead of fighting it. So far I'm not exactly "winning" the fight, but I learn from each experience 

Scott Wheeler wrote on 05/03/12 at 12:49:22:


While we're on the "sealing" subject. Is there any reason to seal the entire bowl blanks or do you still only seal the end grain?

Chris Hendrick wrote on 05/03/12 at 13:02:34:


Chris, when cutting logs into rough blanks I usually only seal the end grain, if I round it out on the band saw and not going to use it for while I will seal the whole blank.  When I rough turn a blank I will pretty much seal the whole bowl with the exception of the tenon and the inside center. Sometimes it goes into a bag with shavings and no sealer and that is sufficient.  A lot will depend on your particular climate, in PA right now its warm and humid, in a month it can be hot and dry.  It’s a little bit art/science to get the right combination for what works for you.  I experimented a bit until I got best results.  Good Luck

Well, once I got off work I decided to look through the wood I brought home this morning and out of the 8-9 pieces I picked up (ranging from 6"-10" diameter or so and anywhere from 18" - 3 feet in length) most was not worth the effort. While cutting it up to manageable pieces, realized the bark was covering extensive splitting and most had some rot going on. The two pieces in the pick above are good and I ended up with one more that same size and two other slightly smaller. I threw one on the lathe tonight and turned a vase of sorts. I'll post pics when I get to work in the morning (camera cable is up there). The spalting on the ends of the wood was fine black erratic lines. However, on the piece I turned already, it had odd discoloration of greenish and reds. Turned out pretty good I guess.

I do have one question though. This wood had some worm damage. There were actually two big nasty (edited out) that I turned out. About an inch long with rock hard mouth areas. Anyways, the "pathways" where the worms had eaten are filled with what I'm assuming is worm crap (looks like sawdust). I've tried on past work to just finish over it and it looked terrible. I think it would look ok if the "sawdust" were not in the paths and they were just empty holes. Has anyone else dealt with this and if so, what can I do to clear out these holes. I don't want to pick it out because I don't think it'll look too good. Sorry for the long post.