Woodturning Materials
So, what can you use as a wood turning material? The better question is, what CAN’T you use! The wood lathe can certainly be used to create objects from most any wood you can imagine, and probably a fair amount of woods you have never heard of much less imagined. But the possibilities don’t stop there. I also use acrylic plastics, deer antler, water buffalo horn, off-cuts from Corian counter tops, corncobs (no, really, I swear), wood composites, and even custom made pens with items encased in special polymers that allow you to do decoupage-like items. One can even rescue the shavings from today’s bowls to make tomorrow’s pens through a process named by its creator, Phoenix Pens. Really, the only limitation is your imagination.
Once I had the Marblewood blank mounted on the lathe, its hardness became readily apparent. The wood cut slowly and with effort, but it was also very stable …
I think Yucatan Rosewood is a quite lovely wood with which a wood worker with some reasonable experience and knowledge about the wood should be able to succeed, especially …
Hollywood Juniper has a delightful odor unlike any other wood I have ever cut or turned, and at this point, I have cut and turned a fair number of …
The Red Gum tree produces lumber with wide sapwood that is whitish to light pink or tan in color. This wood is sometimes referred in the lumber trade …
The heartwood of Honduran Rosewood ranges in color from a deep brownish-purple to a light-brown, with darker brown to black streaking, which occurs in no specific pattern, nor following …
In general, most woodworkers find Gonçalo Alves to be relatively easy to work with despite the quite high density and hardness of the wood. As is almost always …
More often than not, Box Elder is directly harvested by hobbyists who wish to work with the wood, provided they live in areas in which the trees grow wild …