# Black Palm Turning



## Seer (Mar 10, 2009)

Any suggestions on how to turn Black Palm?  I picked up a blank the other day and it weighs a ton and feels hard as a rock, it also appears to have been stabilized.  I have heard wild stories about this wood and since I am new at this I sure would appreciate any suggetstions.
Thanks


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## TellicoTurning (Mar 10, 2009)

Turn Black Palm just like any other wood, just have really really sharp tools.  The pieces I turned the chips/chaff/whatever they're called when you cut them away, are almost like sand as it comes off the blank... if it's stabilized, my be more like a plastic though.


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## fiferb (Mar 10, 2009)

Sharp tools and light cuts. The "straws" of wood fiber are larger in diameter than most woods and may need to be filled with CA or sanding sealer. You won't get ribbons of wood but instead a very fine dust.


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## sbell111 (Mar 10, 2009)

Also, be careful when you drill them.  They can be a little esplodey.


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## jskeen (Mar 10, 2009)

Palm wood is always very heavy and dense.  I've never seen anybody selling stabilized palm, but there is a first for everything.  The structure is exactly like a handfull of pickup sticks glued together with a mixture of yellow glue and sawdust.  The black straws are very hard and dense, and tend to splinter, and the matrix tends to be dry and much softer.  Sometimes a black straw will want to break loose from the matrix rather than cutting and that makes a mess.  If you catch it early enough, ca it back in place and keep going.    For drilling, if the blank is much larger than the tube, you should be ok, just go slow, clear the bit constantly, and if you are doing a two piece pen, cut the halves to length plus a fudge factor before drilling, rather than trying to do it in one fell swoop.   If the blank is smaller and you are using a larger kit, you might consider wrapping the blank in a couple layers of gauze and soaking with med ca, then wrap in a piece of paper to pull everything nice and tight, let dry, trim paper and then drill.  

The gauze and ca is a trick I got from Eagle, the paper is from when I got tired of it having air pockets on the surface of the blank. It works well for any delicate blank, or segmented ones as well.


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## SherryD (Mar 10, 2009)

I have justt stabilized a dozen black palm pen blanks and turned two and if I do say so myself they turned out pretty darn nice.  I may venture into stabilizing on a large scale in the near future.  The wood prior to stabilizing was absolute junk for turning and would have turned to dust.  They were stabilized under vacuum like the big boys do it.  A few of my laser customers that also turn pens have seen them and have made nice comments on how they turned out, it appears to be a real promising candidate for adding to the blanks that stabilize well.  Full penetration on the resin and in a very short time under vacuum.  I may assemble and post picture in near future.


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## Buzz (Mar 12, 2009)

I think too that the kit chosen can have a bearing on the success or otherwise.  I've just done a couple of Churchill/El Grande pens in Black Palm and the thinness of the finished pen makes it tricky.  The Baron/Sedona on the other hand finishes with more timber on the tube and works better with this timber.


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