Owd Jockey
Established Member
Part 2
Because the wood was relatively dry, the ‘Kiln Gods’ were good to me . However, if you want to ensure cracks will not develop, you need to check your piece regularly.....and a good job I did!Three incipient cracks had started to develop from the centre of an included pith. Because, the wood was part of a lower Leylandii trunk the grain was all over the place. So a few drops of CA glue, stopped any crack progression.
I left the piece in the wood kiln for 3 days, before taking it out and mounting the piece back on the lathe. Again, because the wood was so dry initially, there are been virtually no ‘warpage’, so quite easy to get it back into round.
Predominantly, on most of my pieces I aim for a finish that resembles the touch and feel of Glass. That meant working through the grits up to 800. I applied two coats of sanding sealer, one coat of my own abrasive polish (based on Diatomaceous Earth, Linseed oil and Beeswax). I then applied 2 coats of Wood Wax 22 and a single coat of Microcrystalline wax.
Finally, I then had to remove the Tenon, but from the photos you will see that my existing spigots on my home made Cole Jaw could not touch the curved walls of the bowl. So I made 8 extended spigots, which worked out quite well.
So if you ever get the opportunity of working with Leylandii, have a go. It can be free and may be used for a number of projects. Don’t be put off by the stories of resin everywhere, any resin normally forms at the bark/sapwood edge , forming small bubbles which can be brushed off.
Because the wood was relatively dry, the ‘Kiln Gods’ were good to me . However, if you want to ensure cracks will not develop, you need to check your piece regularly.....and a good job I did!Three incipient cracks had started to develop from the centre of an included pith. Because, the wood was part of a lower Leylandii trunk the grain was all over the place. So a few drops of CA glue, stopped any crack progression.
I left the piece in the wood kiln for 3 days, before taking it out and mounting the piece back on the lathe. Again, because the wood was so dry initially, there are been virtually no ‘warpage’, so quite easy to get it back into round.
Predominantly, on most of my pieces I aim for a finish that resembles the touch and feel of Glass. That meant working through the grits up to 800. I applied two coats of sanding sealer, one coat of my own abrasive polish (based on Diatomaceous Earth, Linseed oil and Beeswax). I then applied 2 coats of Wood Wax 22 and a single coat of Microcrystalline wax.
Finally, I then had to remove the Tenon, but from the photos you will see that my existing spigots on my home made Cole Jaw could not touch the curved walls of the bowl. So I made 8 extended spigots, which worked out quite well.
So if you ever get the opportunity of working with Leylandii, have a go. It can be free and may be used for a number of projects. Don’t be put off by the stories of resin everywhere, any resin normally forms at the bark/sapwood edge , forming small bubbles which can be brushed off.
Thanks to my Crown Cryo square end scraper and some very light angled scrapes, I eventually got the surface looking somewhat reasonable.
