Turning coolibah!

[Les Symonds]

I've just turned a coolibah burr and could do with some advise. The blank was a complete burr; not huge, by any means, but big enough to get a little bowl out of it, which has the natural edge of the burr all around its top edge, and the bark still on the outside. Before I started, the piece had one flat face where it was sawn off the tree, and to picture its overall shape, it's best to imagine it as a hemisphere.
Here's the problem...the flat, sawn face has cleaned up well and I've turned a shallow bowl into the centre of it, but the convex outer surface of the burr is a different matter. It still has all of its bark intact, but the bark is quite fibrous and not very hard, and it's covered in lichens that are flaking off every time that I touch it.
Has anyone got any experience of turning this stuff? If so, how did you manage to avoid all the bark-peel? I'm seriously considering stripping all the bark off to reveal the knobbly texture of the solid wood underneath it.
Any advise offered will be appreciated.

Les

[ColWA]

I had a similar problem.
I removed all the bark. I didn't look flash.
So I then turned back to the solid wood & it came out really good.
BUT....it depends on what the bark looks like to start with.

Photo would be good.
HTH

Col

[Les Symonds]

Photo would be good.

Hi Col...and thanks for replying. The shape of my burr is such that I couldn't really turn the outside. If I strip the bark off, it will have to be done by hand. Anyway, here's a pic of the problem and a pic of the overall piece....the front of the bowl has just been oiled, so I'll keep that hidden and post it on the gallery in a day or two.
Les

[Bryan Milham]

Les,

I've only turned one Aussy burr and can't remember what it was. But I also had a fibrous outer matting, under the matting was thousands of short spikey bits. All I did was pick it off the Matting (took ages), polished it, set it on 3 feet and left it like that.

Unless anyone can provide more info, I'd suggest you either wait for or pop a question to Hughie, our resident Antipodean.

[Les Symonds]

Bryan....you're a mind reader! I've sort of come to a decision that Hughie would be a good source of info, so I've also posted a question on anothere forum that he uses, in the hope that I catch him. Also....I'd had the same thought as you about setting it on 3 feet; in fact, I turned three little blackwood pins for it to stand on.
Cheers...Les

[Bryan Milham]

I did it about 12 years ago before I photographed my work, wish I had a photo though it was spectacular.

[George Watkins]

I've had ozzy burr's similar to this a couple of times and have found two methods so far which work fairly well!!
1st is to use a nylon spig or brass brush which gets the majority off but can round over some of the burr texture.
2nd is to power wash it off, you have to get the tip of the lance very close to the burr to force the bark off which means you need to clamp the burr down to something or in something to stop it moving around.

Hope this helps

[Les Symonds]

Thank you George....I will bear that idea in mind for future reference. I used to be concerned about how much moisture the burr would take on, but having experienced just how dense and heavy it is, I doubt that it would absorb much.

Les