dust collection system and personal protective equipment<\/a>, such as respirators, can also be found through this excellent and comprehensive resource.<\/p>\nFortunately, I experienced no negative side effects when working with Cucumbertree wood aside from the disagreeable odor.<\/p>\n
My Personal Experiences<\/h2>\n I had picked up some small, 4”x3” rounds of Cucumbertree wood on a clearance sale for $1.50 each. I knew the wood was green, so originally I set it aside to dry as I usually do with new wood. Later I decided to use the wood as the basis for a green turning experience, something I had never attempted before. I thought that Cucumbertree wood was a good candidate for the experiment because it is relatively dimensionally stable, which would matter as the roughed out bowl dried, and because the wood was so cheap that even if it was a total disaster I wouldn’t be out much.<\/p>\n
I’ve written in much greater detail about the experience of green turning in the post previous to this one, so I won’t go on about it a great deal more here. The wood was clearly green, it cut easily and quickly because it was green and because it was soft as well. The small size of the piece meant that it took very little time to cut rough and it took little time once it was dry and remounted to finish it down to small thin wall dimensions of less than .20” at its thickest on the base. The wood was relatively easy to sand, as would be expected with a material so soft and it took a nice finish and reasonable shine with no difficulty. The wood is somewhat plain, that is true, but it is also quite unique to the area and not a wood that people who live in the western parts of the country, who frequently receive my bowls as gifts, will be familiar with which increases its appeal.<\/p>\n
Overall, I am quite pleased with the experience of working with Cucumbertree wood and I have three more rough turned small dishes in the process of drying as I write. Once those are completed I will add photos to update this post, or as a separate posting. I enjoyed the experience of working with the Cucumbertree wood enough that I have just purchased 3 more larger pieces, and I really don’t need another piece of wood at this point in my life, but I want to try green turning on a larger scale, and a wood I am familiar with that is dimensionally relatively stable and affordable, both characteristics of Cucumbertree wood, seems a good candidate. We’ll see if Cucumbertree wood performs as well and as easily on a larger scale as it did on the smaller.<\/p>\n
As always, I wish all my readers a great experience in whatever their wood working interests happen to be and to those who like working with lathes especially, do a good turn today!<\/p>\n
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Cucumbertree wood is considered to be generally easy to work with both hand and machine powered tools. In part, this is due to the generally straight grain and relative softness of the wood, which measures only 700 on the Janka Hardness Scale. Many woods this soft will \u201cfur\u201d easily upon cutting, even with very sharp tools, making it difficult, if not outright impossible, to achieve a truly smooth finished surface. Fortunately, this does not appear to be a problem with Cucumbertree wood despite its obvious softness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":1125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,138,139,130],"tags":[154,171,181,183,196,200,210,217,239,240,247],"yoast_head":"\n
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