Best Source for Blanks?

[Blackswanwood]

Hopefully the OP is not still searching after all these years …

 

[Tallis]

Have you contacted your local council - in particular, try to find a number to get through to the team that works on Parks and general public space management. I reached out to the local depot manager here in Oxford and have a deal where I arrange in advance, pop in (wearing steel toecaps and a high-vis) and they let me take wood from the HUGE amount that they bring in from around the city.

They pay to get rid of the wood so were happy for me to take what I wanted.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Typical of a council not to have sense enough to sell it.

 

[Democritus]

The down side to getting wood off tree surgeons, or taking a chainsaw to a neighbours felled tree, is that the wood will usually be wet. This means you have to have somewhere to store it where it can be air dried. This may take any time up to a couple of years, and the outcome cannot be guaranteed. I’ve tried it with cherry and eucalyptus. I rough turned the cherry into several bowls, but they distorted so much as they dried, that I only got two reasonable bowls out of them. Similarly, the eucalyptus developed massive splits that made the wood unusable.
Personally, I prefer to pay a bit extra for blanks that I know I will be able to turn straight away, and not have the faff of having to store and dry.
Each to their own, I suppose.
D.

 

[Richard_C]

I reached out to the local depot manager here in Oxford

Do you live very close or do you have very long arms?

Good idea though, but I suspect many councils outsource all tree work so you would be dealing with profit making local government service providers who, along with the phrase "reaching out" in any context apart from the physical act of reaching out for something, are the work of the devil.

Democritus makes a good point, even with careful seasoning I get a high failure rate with found/harvested wood so I do buy blanks as well. Space is limited but I do keep some in aline down the middle fo the garage floor, raised up on things like old fridge shelves for air circulation, It's free space with a car parked over them..

(If I get a call from someone claiming to be "reaching out to me" I hang up, assuming it's an evangelist or someone indoctrinated by a US based employer.)

Off to reach out for my wine glass ...... it's weekend.

 

[Tallis]

There's nothing more tedious and more likely to turn people away from using forums (to which I have donated to support) that pointless pedantry. If you haven't got anything to usefully say, stay sat on you hands.