All,
Apologies for starting the thread, and then disappearing, but my machine decided to do a Win 10 upgrade, and made the machine almost unusable for net work.
Seventhdevil - I don't really do enough bowl turning to warrant a coring system, though I agree cores are a good way to save precious timber. I did wonder about doing a very basic core for this blank. To save some of the wood.
PH Thanks for the picture, it is an unusual shape, on a very similar sized blank. I think will take up on the book offer. I see they are still about on Amazon, for a fairly reasonable price(not new ones though).
TBHT I did ponder splitting the blank, but I very rarely get large blanks so perhaps a chance for me to do something different to what I normally do - that's not to say I might not chicken out and do some smaller projects with it!
BuryWT Thanks for the warning,I did check the blanks carefully before putting them into the store. There was one blank that did look to have WW holes but when I tried to push a a bit of wire in found that they are small hard black dots, not sure whats caused them, and haven't worked out what the timber is yet either, as it wasn't labelled.
Thanks for your help and ideas, I'll try to remember to post a picture of the finished article when done.
John