Size of blanks

[Semi-Hex]

Do you all have a favourite size of blank? I just started doing some milling and am thinking about getting some of this wood ready for some turners. They won't be more than air dried and the local high school will take anything up to a 8" block.

Woods being offered: Madrone, Oak, Redwood, Bay and Fir. Some may turn well some may not. I try to choose pieces that have some kind of special grain &etc. in them.

Just trying to come up with a way to use all this wood that the lumber company leaves behind, instead of firewood and and fire hazard.

Thanks.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

If the wood has figure, the size really has to do with how that figure moves in the wood, and rind density.

Low ring density will move more, check and crack faster, and should be small blanks laminated with a grain rotation, weather the intent is a segmented piece or not.

KD is impractical with large blanks, especially in a fast kiln, the destroy the wood.

AD requires around 1 year per inch of thickness as a general rule of thumb, so you will peobably be selling it as green or semi dried. 4-6/4 thickness may be best from an economical standpoint, unless you have some really nice grain from a but section or the like.

Another way to look at it is; as with a log-buck for yield. If you can get two $12 blanks vs one $20 blank.... Once you get a few piles of them it wont matter to the turner. One guy wants a bowls, one vases, one treen wear and plates.

On the other hand, most turners are cheap bastages who want free wood , one of the reasons I started turning was all the big chunks I had laying around. Never realized how expensive a hobby it is, "ooo, that scraper looks cool, I could form a neet lip on a bowl with that!"

The way you would make real money from us would be to have a large quantity of varied sizes and speicies to choose from, at a low price. Make it up in volume as I walk out with 30 blanks when I wanted 4

One good thin to do is wax or otherwize seal the endgrain so it will not dry faster then the inside of the blank.

 

[stonykill]

thats some good info. I also have for quite a while now thought of selling off some turning blanks. The way I look at it is, if it pays for my fuel and oil for my milling, my wood I use is free!

 

[Semi-Hex]

Thanks to you both. I wasn't sure of anything except that the wood wil be air dried. I can cut them any size, as long as it has some cool feature in the grain. I leave the burls whole and we get some funny crotch wood and other pieces that I think someone would like to use. We'll see, I guess.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Stump wood is cool too, you can get some really neat reaction wood figure in very short sections.

If you get a crotch with equal stems and nice inclusions you night want to just square it up large and wax the endgrain. I like turning those into hollow form vessels along the axis of the grain. Nice flame detail with the endgrain on the sides of the vessel