# Turning Stabilized Wood



## dankc908 (Apr 30, 2011)

Yesterday I made my first attempt to turn some stabilized wood (spalted mango).  This wood had been 'professionally' stabilized by a company that I do not wish to name, yet.  I had glued the tube in and all seemed OK until I began to do my barrel trimming (I use the Pen State barrel trimming kit which has served my purposes well).  I always trim at the lowest speed on my drill press - the specs say 500 rpm, however, my gauge shows 480.  The moment the cutterhead (yes it is still sharp) touched the wood the entire blank exploded on me - wood chips flying everywhere and most (but not all) of the wood exited the brass tube.  I did another dozen wooden blanks of different woods, at the same time, without any problems.  Did I do something wrong or is there another (better) way to deal with stabilized and/or spalted wood?  Many thanks for any input on this issue!

Dan


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## GColeman (Apr 30, 2011)

I have had that happen on occasion.  My solution was the build a jig for my disc sander.  I still use the trimmer for acrylic and antler, but square any wood blanks on the sander.

My guess is that there was some sort of flaw in the blank.  I'll venture to guess also that if you had successfully trimmed the ends it would have blown up on the lathe.


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## its_virgil (Apr 30, 2011)

This is one of the reasons I choose to use a disk sander instead of a barrel trimmer....no cutter edges to catch. The pilot shaft or shim needs to be a a snug, but not tight, fit in order to keep the cutter head stable. Any slack in the pilot shaft or shim can cause the cutter head to wobble and more prone to catch.  Maybe you failed on the glue application on this one blank. I consider a barrel trimmer to be a hand tool. For me, what you describe has only happened when the trimmer was used in a drill or drill press, never when used in a handle and used by hand.

How much material do you normally have to remove on each end of the blank? I see too many penturners removing way too much material using barrel trimmers...in my opinion of course.

If one side of the blank's end is a bit longer than the other this gives the trimmer a better chance of catching on the "high" side.

I hope you find the problem and a solution. 
Do a good turn daily!
Don






dankc908 said:


> Yesterday I made my first attempt to turn some stabilized wood (spalted mango).  This wood had been 'professionally' stabilized by a company that I do not wish to name, yet.  I had glued the tube in and all seemed OK until I began to do my barrel trimming (I use the Pen State barrel trimming kit which has served my purposes well).  I always trim at the lowest speed on my drill press - the specs say 500 rpm, however, my gauge shows 480.  The moment the cutterhead (yes it is still sharp) touched the wood the entire blank exploded on me - wood chips flying everywhere and most (but not all) of the wood exited the brass tube.  I did another dozen wooden blanks of different woods, at the same time, without any problems.  Did I do something wrong or is there another (better) way to deal with stabilized and/or spalted wood?  Many thanks for any input on this issue!
> 
> Dan


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## crabcreekind (May 1, 2011)

I use a drill for trimming the drill is to fast, if you go slow and have light pressure it probably wouldnt explode


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