Western Red Cedar Log Turning
We posted a time lapse video a short while ago on YouTube showing our lathe turning a large Western Red Cedar Log for a local school, and wanted to follow up on the video with a brief bit more on our lathe and its capabilities.
We custom designed and purchased our lathe in 2000 in order to facilitate the turning of the custom, 600mm diameter PSL columns for the Bing Thom Central City Facade project in Surrey, BC. The highly aesthetic columns provide not only wind and seismic bracing for the 14m high free-form glass/timber suspended facade system, but vertical support for the concrete structure above also.
Since then, we have used this enormous (largest in NA) and highly efficient lathe to turn many different wood materials in many shapes. Ask us how.
Below are several projects on which we've used our lathe.
For this project, we turned large elliptical cross-sections 750x550mm parallam ellipses. ( Arena Stage, Washington D.C.)
On the same Central City project that I mentioned earlier, we turned and tapered 10m long douglas fir poles for the "King Post" structure supporting a space truss made of small diameter "peeler cores". Central City Atrium.
Tsingtao Pearl Visitor's Centre
Elliptically turned glulam columns and beams on the Crossroads Canopy.
