Huge burr elm blanks

This is my first blog post in quite some time, so apologies for the lack of updates! As you can probably guess, I’ve been exceptionally busy, with a variety of projects on the go...

I try and rough turn as many blanks as possible during the winter months, so they have stabilised a little before the weather warms up. At present, I have a mountain of burr elm and yew to prepare - my two most popular woods! These two woods are also lovely to rough turn and the colours are just amazing.

This burr elm blank measures just over two feet across and is the limit of what I can lift! I do have some larger pieces outside, so will most likely use an engine hoist to get them onto the lathe…

The image above shows the outside of this blank being turned. This is the largest deign I would be happy to mount onto a chuck - anything larger will have a faceplate screwed to the underside.

Here we have the completed blank, with a slightly deeper (and narrower) one behind. They have both been carefully de barked and the exposed burr edges cleaned with high pressure water. In nearly two years time they’ll be ready to go into the kiln…