Wood Turning Friends

One of the great aspects of wood turning is the friends you make along the way. One of the fellows at church was talking about things with another friend as they stood by the wood pile. As the friend commented on how dry the wood was he picked at a piece of bark to real bird's eye underneath. The log was about 12 feet long and around 9 inches at the butt. My friend said I could have it if I wanted. Now the log was 2 years old and had surface cracks but I still said, "sure."

I took out the saw and cut it into manageable pieces and brought it home. Even though the log was 2 years old I Anchorsealed the ends.

One of my intentions is to document the using of this log to give folks an understanding of how you might work with something like this. Everyone does it a little different but it should be fun to compare notes as I go.

Spruce Burl Dreams

While I was at Summer Camp last week as spiritual director, my wife got a call from a fellow I have never met who had had some work done in his back yard. He had a "couple" of spruce burls if I was interested in them. He and his wife were going to their cottage for a while but they were in the back yard so I could just go get them if I wanted them. So I backed my van into the driveway this morning and looked. There were 29 burls ranging from 6" to about 24" by guess. I loaded them into the van and brought them home. It amazes me that I can back into someone's driveway, load the van, and leave with no one saying anything. These burls look like a lot of fun and I will see they get one back.