Araucaria heterophylla turnings ...

Here are a couple of Araucaria heterophylla (Norfolk Island Pine) turnings that I have just completed. Araucaria trees have a pit below each branch. The branches of these trees grow in rings, about 6 to 7 branches per ring. I aligned the log on the lathe so that the bottom of each of the pits is equidistant (as far as possible) from the centre axis of the vessel. This way one can turn the vessel so that it has a series of windows associated with each branch/knot.


This vessel is 250mm high and 220mm diameter.
(9.8 x 8.6 inches)

The branches and pits in this log didn't align perfectly as far as depth and spacing are concerned so most of the knots in this vesssel don't have windows. On the other hand one or two of the branches had pits above the branch as well as below. This resulted in a lovely suspended knot. As the wall thickness of these two vessels is only 3 to 4mm some very careful turning was in order so as not to loose the knots. The knots are also much harder than the surrounding wood so one needs to cut very gently.








This vessel is 320mm high and 220mm diameter.
(12.5 x 8.6 inches)

It has big well defined knots with a window at all six knots.
This vessel also has darker spalting as the log had been allowed to weather for longer.

The technique I used with these vessels to get an even wall thickness right down to the bottom of the vessel was to work in a darkened workshop with a light shining through the vessel wall from the outside. Turn until the light intensity is even all the way down to the bottom and hopefully the wall thickness is even all the way down!





I have a similar vessel to the two above already on display down at Waterfront Woodturners.

I have another log from the same tree that is now extremely well spalted. Time to turn it soon and see what that looks like.