Why I love turning box elder bowl blanks in my shop
If you've ever gotten your hands on some box elder bowl blanks, you already know how much fun they are to put on the lathe. For the longest time, box elder (which is actually a species of maple, Acer negundo) was looked down upon by woodworkers. It was often called a "weed tree" or "junk wood" because it grows fast, dies relatively young, and doesn't have the structural integrity of something like white oak or hard maple. But for woodturners? Man, we see things differently. To us, that "junk" is a canvas for some of the most striking natural colors you can find in North American timber. ...