I got some Buloke blanks! Yay for turning iron!

Bit excited today, friend of mine has "a small place" down in New South Wales where his family has a timber plantation, and apparently his dad had tried growing Buloke on one tract many years ago. So he has a few hundred mature trees that are too damned hard to harvest. But he does still go out and cut one once and a while to burn when the weather requires, apparently the stuff burns great once it catches. The tree itself is far from endangered but any grove where the red tailed black cockatoo moves into gets marked as a preserve, they have apparently yet to move in on his plantation so he harvests what he can when he can.

But I finally got him to send me a few blanks, and they only took 2 extra months to clear customs, so I now have some kiln dried (thanks to the USDA) Boluke of various sized blanks.

He says while wet its cuts like "any other wood" and doesn't ruin is chainsaw blades, but once it dries at all its like trying to "saw through lead" and takes forever, doesn't dull blades but he says it just takes a long time to cut dry. I haven't had a chance to do more than poke it but the stuff is damned heavy, not as bad as my block of lingum vitea but it certainly feels heavier for its size than anything else I have in the pile other than maybe some rosewood.

Once my ankle is back in working order I'm going to try turning it. I'm told it turns well but can dull chisels quickly so we'll see.

I may have to make a few new chisels just for the occasion, because I need a reason right?

Not a particularly pretty wood roughcut, kind of a muddy red, but crap all is it heavy.

Have some pen sized blanks, a larger maybe baseball bat sized one and a few shallow bowl or plate sized blanks. I'll see what all I can come up with when I get mobile again.