Help Needed Turning Teak.

[Hoakie]

I'm at a loss. I've turned several pens to date and want to make one out of teak. A co-worker gave me half dozen teak blanks and I've shattered 3 of them by the busings as I'm turning them down. Any suggestions on what might be causing this and/or how to prevent this?

Thanks

[final_t]

When shattering blanks of any type of wood or plastic, I've found that three things cause the most problems:
1) Gluing: this accounts for 90% of the problems I've had. With softer or lighter woods, the glue can soak in before it bonds up - so with this, I use the thin stuff inside the wood hole a lot before pushing the brass tube in. For when the tube is really loose in the hole, I use either a lot of thick stuff, or better yet, use gorllia glue. Having the tube loose in the material sets up vibration, which causes catches.
2) Too fast a speed, usually with:
3) Dull tools! #2 and #3 combined will make you natually push harder into the wood, setting up stresses that cause a nice bang.

Is the teak you're turning really soft and/or punky, or hard stuff?

[Whaler]

I have turned several teak pens without a problem. The only thing I can think of is possibly dull tools. It's been a couple years but as I remember it wasn't the friendliest wood to turn even with sharp tools.
The teak that I used was very high quality that was salvaged from a boat, it had also been drying for about 20 years.

[Hoakie]

Thanks guys,

I'll resharpen and turn the speed down to see if that helps.

[Russianwolf]

take small cuts and you can also try saturating the blank with CA if it's not oily.

I have run into problems with blanks breaking at the ends when the grain is going at a diagonal. sharp tools and light cuts is the best. The CA can add alittle extra strength if the wood is really dry. I've done that one some spalted blanks.

[ke4rdb]

Either the tube was not glue well enough ( in other words, voids were thereis no glue on the tube/blank) or dull tools...my guess would be a dull tool (which causes you to use to much pressure then a catch).

I have turned some teak, it turns well, but is a bit dull (lack of interesting grain or color)for a pen.

JW