Wood Turning Blanks
Our hardwood turning blanks offer a canvas for your artistic vision, allowing you to shape, carve, and sculpt stunning pieces.
Product Description
North Castle Hardwoods’ wood turning blanks are small pieces of top-quality hardwood cut and ready for use on a lathe. We call our turning blanks “lumber squares,” because they have equal (or square) width and thickness for even results.
4/4 wood squares are finished to 13/16”. 5/4 wood squares are finished to 1-1/16”. And 6/4 wood squares are finished to 1-5/16” with tight tolerances. All our turning blanks are available in lengths from 12” to 36”, making them ideal for spindles, tool handles, and furniture parts.
Our wood-turning blanks are made from our proprietary grades of North American hardwood, meticulously kiln-dried for optimal performance.
What are Wood Turning Blanks Used for?
All the wood species we offer as turning blanks can be used for decorative and keepsake items, from pens to chess pieces. However, some species have features that make them better suited to furniture or high-stress applications like tool handles.
- Black Walnut is known as the “king of hardwoods” for its exceptional beauty. Woodworkers create heirlooms such as ornaments, pens, or goblets with walnut-turning blanks.
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Cherry turning blanks are often used for table and chair legs but can serve a variety of other purposes around the home.
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White Oak is one of the best hardwoods for use outdoors. Its strength and durability make it popular for stair spindles and other architectural uses.
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Hard White Maple is great for kitchen items beyond cutting boards. Maple turning blanks make some of the best rolling pins, spoons, and knife handles. In the furniture industry, maple is often stained to imitate cherry.
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White Ash is one of the strongest woods for its weight. This makes it ideal for sporting equipment (think Louisville Slugger bats!) and tool handles. While not used for furniture or architecture as often as other species, white ash makes wonderfully strong chair legs, spindles, and balusters.
Wood Turning Blanks Available
We offer wood-turning blanks in several North American hardwood species, including hard maple, black cherry, black walnut, white ash, and white oak. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, let us know! We’re happy to create a custom order for you!
If you’re a woodturner, you will also love our wood crafting boxes! Each box contains 12 pounds of high-quality hardwood cuttings waiting for your creative genius to turn them into beloved pieces.
Tips for Working with Turning Blanks
Wood turning is an ancient skill, but takes a lot of practice to perfect! Wood species like ash and cherry require extremely sharp tools to reduce burning and tear out. Keeping your tools sharp creates much cleaner cuts and reduces safety risks, so make this a number-one priority.
Paying attention to the direction of the grain is also crucial, especially when working with hardwoods. For spindle turning, align the grain parallel to the lathe bed to minimize tear-out and achieve cleaner cuts. This applies to all projects made with lumber squares. For bowl and other end-grain turning projects, you can orient the piece to highlight the beauty of the wood grain.
