Turn, turn, turn, BLAM, expletive!

[dbhost]

The subject kind of sums it up. I have a project I am working on, getting an early start on Christmas gifts. I am wanting to turn 12" tall 3.25" diameter base cones to act as bracelet holders for my wife. She saw a couple of them used as a display at a local boutique that she loved the holders but hated the bracelets...

So I got busy in the shop. Mostly honing my skills on turning back up. I knocked out a quick blank out of laminated 2x4 stock that was plenty stable, or I thought it was. This was supposed to be milk painted so I figured SYP would be fine...

Put the spur drive in, lined up the live center, cranked it down, and got to turning. Got a rough cylinder shape no problem, got the base turned nicely, worked my way down the taper no problem. I get the cone shape nice and even, the center had about 3/8" still attaching it to the chunk to be cut off, I was going over it sanding when it happened...

The *#$% stock split smooth down the middle!

Not on a glue line, and not even along one of the points where the spur drive entered, but literally about 22.5 deg off, smack between the blades of the spur drive...

I guess that SYP wasn't quite as stable as I thought it was...

VERY tempted to do a maple / black walnut alternating glue up and do this in Danish oil instead of paint...

Okay, just had to rant. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[atgcpaul]

That's scary and interesting. I've got about 30 minutes of turning under my belt so being the cautious type, I kind of like to know what can go wrong before it does. Hopefully you find a reason. Before you said that it didn't split along the glue line, I was thinking the heat from sanding loosened up the glue or that the spur drive was wedged in too tightly, but you ruled those out.

[schloff]

I've had decent luck segment turning. That might be your ticket. Plus, you can get very creative with the stack-up when you build the blank.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Sorry to hear about the mishap Dave, and glad to not hear about you being injured (I hope.) There may have been a hidden crack or weak spot in your blank. But another factor may have been speed. How fast were you turning when it split?

[Stytooner]

How fast did you split when it did?
This type thing is one of the reasons I always wear a full face shield when turning any kind of wood. It won't prevent all injuries and may not save your nose, but it will save your eyesight so that you can see how badly your nose was broke.
Glad you were not injured, Dave.
SYP can be a mean chunk of wood. That is for sure. I was given a lot of it that was reclaimed from an old house before. It was full dimension lumber. You could not drive a nail in the stuff. If you did manage it, it would split.
You had to predrill.

[dbhost]

Sorry to hear about the mishap Dave, and glad to not hear about you being injured (I hope.) There may have been a hidden crack or weak spot in your blank. But another factor may have been speed. How fast were you turning when it split?

I had it going full speed, so I was probably getting it too hot. Only thing injured was my pride and the work piece...

I was wearing a full face shield, and a long ballistics nylon work apron from Home Depot. I secured anything loose on it so nothing to snag, I took a piece of it mid chest but no damage thank God.

I think I need to slow the thing down. can't find all the pieces, or even most of them right now. I think it went behind the lawn mower. Ugh. I hate that spot!

Yeah, this isn't my first rodeo with SYP, and it can be a real bear. When it dries, it twists a LOT, when it is dry it is like iron. This stuff was dry and required a bit of touch up to my gouges to get the thing round in the first place... The 1" was too big, the 1/2" was right sized to not hang, but boy it took forever to cut... And yes it was sharp. I managed to fairly easily cut shavings with it... So I know it wasn't a dull tool...

If this did the same thing the Camphor burl I had a while back did to me, it had a hidden crack near one of the ends and just let go. Happens sometimes.

My wood projects are going to have to wait for rainy days now though. The F150 has the typical 5.4L 3V cam phaser knock I need to fix, and the Saturn managed to break the high pressure bypass fitting off the intake manifold today. It is where coolant comes out of the cylinder head through the manifold and into a hose to return to the coolant reservoir. What kind of imbecile makes an intake manifold with coolant fittings out of plastic? I am going to try to tap the hole, and then screw in / JB weld to make it permanent, a Brass fitting to take its place. Hopefully that will do the trick, if not, I will need to source up a good replacement manifold. Until then, we are borrowing my sister in laws Toyota Celica. Half tempted to buy that thing from her. I love those cars!

[JSUPreston]

As far as segmented turning goes, I found a guy by the name of Frank Howarth on YouTube that does some interesting stuff. One of his latest turnings involved using scrap bamboo plywood.

[Richard in Smithville]

I was playing around with a length of green sour cherry one time when I had it split rather suddenly while spinning. It scared the pant off me to say the least but it did burn nicely the next summer.