Continuing to work my way through the Craft Supplies USA “Box of Blocks”, 20 pound grab bag so to speak, I turned a small Poplar and a small Maple dish today.
I have discussed both Poplar and Maple at length previously so I won’t go into it again here.
As I would have expected, the Poplar cut quickly and easily although it was a bit fuzzy, again as expected of a relatively soft hardwood. It cleaned up quickly. This piece of Poplar had a distinctive yellow color.
Small Poplar Bowl Interior
Small Poplar Bowl Sidewall
Small Poplar Bowl Reverse
The Maple was much harder and cut slowly. It also, surprisingly for such a hard wood, it cut fairly chunky at times. This piece of Maple, unlike most that you see, has a great deal of wild figure and inclusions. I don’t have any idea what caused the cream colored inclusions, could be insects or disease, but it is certainly striking and makes the piece unique.
Small Maple Bowl Interior
Small Maple Bowl Sidewall
Small Maple Bowl Sidewall
Both of these pieces are quite small, measuring slightly more than 4 inches across and less than 2 inches high.
I don’t expect these piece from the BOB to be amazingly beautiful or challenging, but since I have the material it feels to me like I should go ahead and use it up to make the best of it. I won’t buy BOB again however as I’d rather put the resources and time into known species that I really like to work with instead of whatever the retailer chooses to reject.
All cuts were made with Easy Wood Tools, bowls were chucked in Nova Chucks, sanding was done with Yellow and Green Wave papers from Packard Woodworks, and the finish is Shellawax. My lathe is a Robust American Beauty.