Breaking my heart

[Dalboy]

Two sheds full of blanks and still can't find one of the right type of wood or correct sizes that I want. There must be over 200 blanks either bowl or spindle this is going to break my heart as I just may have to go and buy some unless I can get some sycamore

 

[woodbloke66]

Two sheds full of blanks and still can't find one of the right type of wood or correct sizes that I want. There must be over 200 blanks either bowl or spindle this is going to break my heart as I just may have to go and buy some unless I can get some sycamore

I was in NZ before Christmas and the turner I met there had FOUR shipping containers full (this is just one)...

...of fiddleback blanks of ancient or swamp (as the Kiwi's say) Kauri - Rob

 

[TopCat 32]

My god , that is Heaven right there in that shipping container

 

[Dalboy]

My two sheds of wood may not be as big as a shipping container but they still hold plenty of wood and these were taken before I filled the gaps with a load of yew and walnut. The logs stacked outside are still to be processed they are bottom yew and top three Holly which originally cut down three years ago. The slabs they sit on are 18" square

 

[woodbloke66]

Very nice! My store of wood blanks is decidedly measly compared to your stash, but then I only take to the 'dark side' once in a while, usually when SWIMBO 'asks' me to spin up a bowl for someone...after all, how many bowls do you actually need in a house? I suppose I've got no more than a dozen bits of wood of various sizes that I can make something with; bowls, mushrooms, goblets etc. Most of it sits under the lathe, so there's not much.

Incidentally, the chap in NZ that I saw seasoned his blanks using a de-humidifier. All he did was to cut them into rounds and stack them in a perfectly sealed (no ingress of air) fairly largish shed in which sat the said de-humidifier, drained to the outside. Once it was up and running, he estimated that a load of thick, green blanks could be seasoned ready for use in around twelve weeks - Rob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If they were swamp kauri they would only need drying, not seasoning - they're thousands of years old.
Kauris are no longer felled, so unless you're lucky enough to get some that's wind blown you won't get any green.

 

[woodbloke66]

If they were swamp kauri they would only need drying, not seasoning - they're thousands of years old.
Kauris are no longer felled, so unless you're lucky enough to get some that's wind blown you won't get any green.

The logs are pretty wet when they come out of the swamp, but I don't know exactly how wet compared to green timber. You're right though, commercial felling stopped around 1930 when they realised that there was virtually none of original forest left. Landowners can, if fact cut down a standing kauri, but they have to have a cast iron reason to do so and the pile of forms they have to fill in is about an inch thick! - Rob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have a very good book on them. Apparently at the turn of the 19th/20th century they were cutting kauris down that were three times older than Tane Mahuta. Many of them were not felled initially, they were bled to death for the gum.

 

[woodbloke66]

I have a very good book on them. Apparently at the turn of the 19th/20th century they were cutting kauris down that were three times older than Tane Mahuta. Many of them were not felled initially, they were bled to death for the gum.

Tane Mahuta is one of the oldest surviving trees at around 2000yo but not oldest in the forest, who goes under the Maori name of Te Matua Ngahere or 'Father of the Forest'

They reach the crown or canopy and then simply start to get fatter by around a mm (or less) a year! The threat to them now is Kauri Dieback, a fungal infection which is slowly killing them; hence the reason you can't now go and give them cuddles as you used to :lol: We were told though, of bigger and older trees much further away from the forest road which the Maori know of but very few have seen - Rob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I saw it twenty years ago and it's aged 600 years since then - it was only thought to be 1400 years old. One reason you are not allowed near them is they are susceptible to root damage from being walked around - their roots are very shallow.

 

[woodbloke66]

I saw it twenty years ago and it's aged 600 years since then - it was only thought to be 1400 years old. One reason you are not allowed near them is they are susceptible to root damage from being walked around - their roots are very shallow.

The age of the tree is unknown and is only really a guestimate but the dieback is happening very close; our guide estimated that the fungi in the ground was only 60 or 70 metres from the tree; hence there are now elevated walkways and all visitor footwear had to be thoroughly cleaned with some sort of disinfectant. That paints a pretty grim picture but the upside is that there's loads of new kauri trees growing and they hope that they may be resistant to the disease - Rob