I posted a little while back that I had popped some pieces of beech wood into the waste/compost pile to see if they would spalt.
Once these were removed they needed a little while to dry out as they were very wet from being outside.
After some time to dry a little, I put one in the lathe and quickly turned a little bowl which unfortunately went badly wrong (more of which shortly).
After turning the piece, it was obvious that it hadn’t spalted, which, to be fair, shouldn’t really have been a surprise. At this time of year it is far too cold and wet for any fungal/bacterial process to take place. I’ll maybe try again in the summer.
So, what went wrong?
As mentioned, the piece was quite wet, so after turning, I microwaved the bowl to dry it. Nothing new there and I expected the bowl to warp a little, which is still quite a nice effect.
Once it was dry, it didn’t look to have warped much but I felt that the walls were a bit thick so decided to pop it back in the lathe to turn them a bit thinner. This a where it went horribly wrong. I should have known better really. It had warped; I wasn’t careful enough presenting the tool to the inside of the bowl and the minute it made contact it caught with the following result!
