# Wood knots



## crquack (Oct 10, 2008)

Do you worry about knots in the wood blanks you are about to turn? I have not seen it mentioned in print nor have I seen anyone worrying about it in the videos. However...

I tried some exercises today on a 4x4x12 cedar (all I could get) blank. Roughing it out proved tougher than I expected. I used a 3/4" roughing gouge, resharpened several times. I gradually increased the revs from about 300 to 750 which seemed to give the best results. 

At one end of the blank there was a knot and it was definitely harder to work this end and the gouge edge was getting quite a beating. Not at all what I expected watching R. Raffan. He whizzed through the roughing process in a couple of passes.

Once I got it down to a cylinder I was able to use a 3/8" spindle gouge and 1" skew chisel with relative ease. I even returned to the 3/4" gouge for a few passes and it worked fine.

I suspect it is my technique rather than the knots but I though I would make sure.


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## Bob N (Oct 12, 2004)

Tight knots should not pose much of a challange, whereas lose knots can be an exciting experience  Keep your tools VERY sharp and choose only wood with the tighter knots and you should have better results. Some lose knots can be doctored to a "tight" status by using CA glue if need be and depending on the knot itselt.


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## BernieW (Sep 12, 2006)

Ditto what Bob said. Knots can be exciting and can look really cool in turnings. I like them but do check them out as if they are loose they can be exciting as they exit the wood. CA can be your friend.


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## woodworking_dad (Oct 30, 2009)

I've had some blowouts while turning pens when I hit the knots. As the previous posts say, sharp tools do help. I've also used 80 grit sand paper to help shape my turnings that have knots.

Dave


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