This is kind of a milestone for me so I thought I would share not only the outcome but the past behind it. When I first started lathing I practiced a lot (I still do!) and I tried every wood I could get my hands on. Some I did well with and others gave me problems. I always seem to be able to overcome the problem woods and the only real problem was my own lacking skills. This is all with the exception of one particular wood and that is Bloodwood! I had purchased a nice piece that was 2-1/2” by 2-1/2” by 24” and have tried to make stuff out of this would on several occasions. Oh sure I was able to make pens and finials but my problem came when I attempted to do face work with it. On spindle work I did fine but any face work such as hollowing or even facing I experienced terrible catches. One box I was trying to make one time out of this wood I had such a bad catch just while hollowing out the lid that it ripped it right out of the chuck.
I have pretty much avoided this wood even though it is so beautiful just simply because I was basically afraid of it. It is very frustrating and disheartening to be almost finished with a project and have it destroyed. What I believe made it worse for me was that the sites on the Internet that list different exotic woods show Bloodwood to be very workable. I just could not figure out why this wood caused me so much grief and why I had such a hard time dealing with it.
Well tonight after I had completed the changing of my wife’s brake pads on her SUV I found that I had finished much earlier than I anticipated due to not running into any major problems or roadblocks. So I decided to go back out to the shop and see it I could kick out another project in the 5 hours I had left before having to come in and get my stuff together for work tomorrow. So out to the shop I went and I started looking for a piece of wood that was asking to be made into something. Well I came across that dang piece ofBloodwood and the mini masochist in me said why don’t we give that a go again!
To my surprise I worked the wood like it was easy and everything went my way! I made small beads and line decorations with total confidence. I even got brave and hollowed to just over a 16th of an inch!
This is the results 2" Wide and 3-1/2" tall;
My point here is for the times when you get frustrated or just don’t think that you can do something or maybe you never will be able to, well just keep at it and don’t give up! Just keep practicing and trying until you can do it.
I have pretty much avoided this wood even though it is so beautiful just simply because I was basically afraid of it. It is very frustrating and disheartening to be almost finished with a project and have it destroyed. What I believe made it worse for me was that the sites on the Internet that list different exotic woods show Bloodwood to be very workable. I just could not figure out why this wood caused me so much grief and why I had such a hard time dealing with it.
Well tonight after I had completed the changing of my wife’s brake pads on her SUV I found that I had finished much earlier than I anticipated due to not running into any major problems or roadblocks. So I decided to go back out to the shop and see it I could kick out another project in the 5 hours I had left before having to come in and get my stuff together for work tomorrow. So out to the shop I went and I started looking for a piece of wood that was asking to be made into something. Well I came across that dang piece ofBloodwood and the mini masochist in me said why don’t we give that a go again!
To my surprise I worked the wood like it was easy and everything went my way! I made small beads and line decorations with total confidence. I even got brave and hollowed to just over a 16th of an inch!
This is the results 2" Wide and 3-1/2" tall;
My point here is for the times when you get frustrated or just don’t think that you can do something or maybe you never will be able to, well just keep at it and don’t give up! Just keep practicing and trying until you can do it.
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