When wood turning you never know what you will get. It brings to mind the famous line from the Forrest Gump film “life is like a box of chocolates etc……”. I am currently making two pepper grinders from the remnants of a garden sleeper,which as I recall was described as Queensland hard wood. This doesn’t really mean much but the wood is hard meaning that there is a lot of tool sharpening.
There was enough material for to make the grinders about 16 inches long. The timber had been drying in the backyard for about 7 or 8 years, nice and dry without any apparent cracks. HOwever both pieces have cracks and bits flying off during turning. All is not lost bring on the superglue! Using a thin and runny superglue its possible to run the glue into cracks and stabilise them. To deal with the bits that keep flying off there is a thicker version of the glue that is useful to reattached the missing bits. This usually means searching around the shop or in the piles of shavings on the floor. In each case the glue is set using an aerosol accelerator.
Marvellous stuff however there are still the holes left by the bits I couldn’t find. Apparently 5 minute Araldite is the go here. I will see how this goes.
