I got a new shipment of bowl blanks today and amongst the blanks was a piece of rainbow poplar. Rainbow poplar is poplar that is extensively colored due to mineral staining that the tree acquired whilst it was still alive. This particular piece of wood came from Turningblanks 4U, a wood supplier in Florida that has sent me some amazing wood over the past several months (I wish I could convince them to move to Minnesota).
Since the coffee table project is temporarily on hold, I decided to treat myself to an afternoon of turning and I selected the poplar blank. Here is a photo of it on the lathe:
You can see how grubby it looks. The blanks are coated with wax by the supplier to keep it from drying out whilst it's still in inventory.
These last two photos show the bowl roughly turned and you can see the colors in the wood grain:
This wood is technically a hardwood but it's very soft like pine and if you look closely you can see some tearing of the wood grain. This bowl is now in a drying bag and we'll revisit it in 6 weeks time.
I also received a pecan blank and a silky oak blank. I've never turned either of these woods and so this should be an adventure.
Drop by the wood shop tomorrow and we'll work on the pecan blank.
Time to go and make dinner--see you tomorrow.
VW
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