black Locust

[markgum]

I won a piece of fresh cut black locust the other month at the local AAW meeting. Late last night I took it to the shop and started spinning it. Well, before that I shapened my bowl gouge. turned for about an hour, (not solid, stopping often, checking things etc.) finished the outide. looking good.
Turned it around, sharpened the tools again and WHAM :frown: across the shop it flew. Stuck it back in the chuck tightened it down good, started again, scraped out most of it and WHAM a chunck hit the face shield it the piece hit the lathe on the way down and knocked a BIG hole in the side. :frown: :frown:. It was THIN, I could see the light through it. It was looking awesome.
So is Black Locust HARD to turn? Maybe just a HARD wood that requires super sharp tools? I know one of the problems was turning the piece down to small to hold in the jaws of the chuck. I want to go out and chop down the big tree in the back 40 and cut some limbs off of it and try this again. I know after about an hour of turning, I found my self pushing the tool to cut. so think I may have been a bit to agressive hollowing it.

 

[gregsayers2000]

I have never turned the stuff but have cut plenty of it for firewood. I can tell you it is tough on steel and also has mineral deposits in it. I have run into a pencil sized streak that ran about 2ft up the log. When the chain hit it sparked like hitting a nail.

 

[JerrySambrook]

Black Locust is a very hard wood on tools, and is hard to turn because of this.
If you turn for a couple of passes, re-hone or sharpen you tool, turn again for a few passes, etc, then it will go easier.

 

[David Keller]

Hard as a woodpecker's lips!

 

[robutacion]

I won a piece of fresh cut black locust the other month at the local AAW meeting. Late last night I took it to the shop and started spinning it. Well, before that I shapened my bowl gouge. turned for about an hour, (not solid, stopping often, checking things etc.) finished the outide. looking good.
Turned it around, sharpened the tools again and WHAM :frown: across the shop it flew. Stuck it back in the chuck tightened it down good, started again, scraped out most of it and WHAM a chunck hit the face shield it the piece hit the lathe on the way down and knocked a BIG hole in the side. :frown: :frown:. It was THIN, I could see the light through it. It was looking awesome.
So is Black Locust HARD to turn? Maybe just a HARD wood that requires super sharp tools? I know one of the problems was turning the piece down to small to hold in the jaws of the chuck. I want to go out and chop down the big tree in the back 40 and cut some limbs off of it and try this again. I know after about an hour of turning, I found my self pushing the tool to cut. so think I may have been a bit to agressive hollowing it.

Hi markgum,

To solve your problem efficiently and quickly just try put a 4" (Flap) sanding disk, grits 40 to 80 on your 4" grinder and used it to cut and shape you hard or too soft blanks right to the hand sanding stage. Use the lathe turning as if you here using the gouge...!

Try this and than, comeback and tell us all how it went...!:wink:
I will surprise you!

PS: You can use the lathe tool rest to position your grinder's disc guard on and have a perfect control over the grinder movements up, down and side to side!

Cheers
George

 

[Mac]

Yes ,thats black locust hard but pretty wood ,also I don't like the smell when turning.
When holding in a chuck ,make sure you use all of your jaw surface ,when you make your tenon. This will insure that you are holding ,with all of your chuck. The ideal is to completly incircle the wood with as close to the same radius as your chuck jaws, that you are using. One of our members of our local AAW club did a personal demo with a national turner and told us this ,Seems to hold better for me ,even with the toughest of woods, when you have to get rough with it. I also have an easyrougher and that helps also on tough jobs.

 

[markgum]

Thanks everyone.