I’m falling behind on my bowl, but I know I need to get the green stock for my ‘lowrider’ legs to rough length and round or risk losing the material to cracking, checks, and major warping. Since I don’t have more, that would ‘totally suck’. This aspect of green wood is something I’m understanding more and more. When you take it out of log shape, you have to get a certain amount of the work done or you’ll have much harder work (because it’s not green and easy to work) or lose it entirely.
Today I started by doing some cleanup in the shop. The fixture for flattening works great, but the router throws chips everywhere. I really need to remember to cover up before using it next time.
Back on Saturday I had the remaining chunk of log I realized I could use for the legs.
I didn’t take a picture then, but used the chainsaw to cut that section down the pith/rot line. Today, I divided those two sections to end up with four straight-grained chunks of log, making sure there was room for a 2"-2.5" leg in each. The “easy” part was cutting the two sections to oversized length, though as much as they weight that wasn’t so much easy as manageable.
I then spent an inordinate amount of time getting those two sections turned into four sections. Sometimes I have a great idea and everything falls together nicely. Not today. I tried a bunch of approaches, mostly to poor results. Ultimately it was a mix of jointer, table saw, bandsaw, and whole lot of lugging around heavy chunks of osage orange (I can almost feel how sore I’ll be in a day or two).
I ended up with four unimpressive lengths of wood large enough to each make a lowrider leg.
I then trimmed some of the excess wood from each and decided to turn one of the sections round. It was a good chance to work on my turning skills, which are currently not up to par for what I need in making windsor chairs. It came out alright and I can tell my turning skills are improving.
Now I have only three more sections to turn in the next couple of days before “bad” things happen to them (warping, cracking, checking, etc.).
