From the sounds of the reports I have gotten, I left town in a timely fashion? Snow on the foothills, and Killington, of course, already open.

As I have reported before in this column, we are blessed with, what I refer to, as an  embarrassment of riches’ in the variety of turning woods we have down here. The day after I arrived I was over at our meeting place for our regular cutting session.  This time, in addition to a couple of our regulars like rosewood, Photo #428, and eucalyptus,
Photo #426, there were a couple of new ones. Photo #408 shows a piece of mahoe (https://www.wood-database.com/bluemahoe/).

Blue refers to the blossoms, which were long gone when we got the log. Actually a distant cousin of the hibiscus, it has incredibly gnarly and fibrous bark which is very noticeable in the photo, and the wood has a greenish cast, which is not really visible here. When I turn a piece of it, I will send along a pic. There is also some burl scattered through it. I hope both become more pronounced when polished up!

Another new one, to me, is podocarpus (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podocarpus)). Classified as a conifer, the wood is light colored, moderately hard, and bark looks like soft maple. Photo #406 shows a nice crotch section. It doesn’t have a real pronounced feather, but enough to show in a shallow natural edge bowl. I will have a piece of this turned soon and will report back in the next issue.

Cheers! And if you’re planning a trip to Florida……give me a shout, and STOP BY!!!

Russ Fellows
(Skunkmen@gmail.com)

Last modified: November 14, 2018