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OK so you've made all the normal small projects, used up the
timber from the scrap pile and would now like to move on to larger quality
items, what's stopping you? The major stumbling block to turning
larger projects is usually the cost and availability of the timber. Good
quality timber for woodturners comes with a premium price tag, after all
everyone has to make a living. There are numerous timber sources in the UK
for both native and imported hardwoods, some of our own native timbers are
becoming scarce and hard to find, the continuing Dutch Elm disease is
still taking most of this wood much loved by turners.
Most woodturning shops sell timber ready cut in the form of
round blanks
or spindle squares, someone has to cut and seal the
blanks, this cost has to be passed on the the customer. At Creative
Woodturning timber is bought as planks of varying
thickness, planks are then converted into round blanks, sealed and stored
until ready for use, some of these blanks are
available for sale:
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Sycamore, some with
good ripple or spalted markings, white & brown Ash, some ripple.
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Yew branch wood in
various diameters from 2" upwards, very good colour.
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Very limited stocks of Elm, some with good pippy burr, contact Mike for
further details.
Although native
timbers are the norm at Creative Woodturning if offered the chance to buy
unusual or well marked wood from outside the country it is jumped at,
recently a fair sized load of such timber became available, so good it
couldn't be turned down so if you're interested we now also have very limited stocks of
Tiger Maple in nine inch wide boards a little under two inches thick.
This is very
well marked and for those of you who haven't seen Tiger Maple it really
does look like the stripes on the sides of a tiger, there are many
theories about how it is caused but the best one is that the movement of
the tree by wind causes the fibres to become stronger and interlock,
causing this strange but truly beautiful effect to happen, this effect is
further enhanced when the finished piece is polished.
Choosing to support the local economy, English native home grown timbers are
bought whenever possible from local country parks, new developments and from the
estate offices of the many stately
homes within
Derbyshire and the surrounding counties. |
