Red Ironbark

Perhaps the most turned items in any woodturner’s gallery, dishes and bowls service both utilitarian and decorative purposes – they can be used for a variety of purposes or simply displayed and admired!
My preferred timbers ae red ironbark, redgum and yellow box – all Australian eucalypts. I have also used some European timbers – liquidamber, silver birch and London Plane trees.

Red Ironbark dish. Its best feature is the deep red colour and close grain which makes it ideal as both decorative and useful. this piece was made from wood obtained from a farm near St Arnoud in Central Victoria.

Red Ironbark high dish

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London Plane Tree

These trees are grown throughout the Melbourne eastern suburbs as street trees producing much shade during summer, huge amounts of leaves in autumn and bare in winter. Wood becomes available when the trees are trimmed or re-shaped.
Of medium hardness, the wood has a very interesting grain with lots so little flecks throughout, similar to beech but not as prominent and much closer.

Yellow Box

Yellow Box is a hard wood and unforgiving to lapses of concentration. However, it has a close grain and polished beautifully – the same can be said for most Australian hardwoods

Spalted Silver Birch

I was given a number of pieces of silver birch that had been cut about 10 years so I thought they would be fairly well dried. One piece was unusable as the interior was excessively decayed. However, the second piece I cut had only slight degradation and this dish is the result.
‘Spalting’ results from discolouration of wood caused by a chemical reaction with funghi. While is does weaken the wood, it also gives it interesting patterns of colour.

Australian Blackwood
(Acacia melanoxylon)

Blackwood is a medium-hard Australian native from the Acacia family. In former times it was used extensively for furniture and joinery such as kitchens; it now used as extensively now.

Huon Pine

Huon pine is always a pleasure to work with. Found exclusively in south-west
Tasmania, it could be described as a moderately hard softwood with a close grain and even colouring. Turning it is like slicing butter with a hot knife.

It carries little risk as it has a very even grain without internal splits, checks or other defects to catch a chisel and shatter. It is finished with a liquid wax polishing comprising tung oil and carnuba wax.

This piece was made from a wood blank given me by a friend some years ago. I finished it recently in 2021 and was very pleased to give it to my friend.