Fir Bark Grip

I was down at my sister's farm last week and noticed a massive fallen fir tree. I had seen a fir grip before so I grabbed a nice chunk of bark off the tree - cut it to a size small enough to fit on my lathe and started turning.


The chunk



I turned the whole thing between centers into a cylinder. Not surprisingly - the lathe was pretty unstable with this huge chunk turining. It probably isn't the safest way to do this - but I don't have a band or table saw - so I just took it straight to the lathe.



After I got it shaped into a cylinder - I put it into a 4 jaw chuck and started shaping it into a grip. Then drilled a 1/4" hole and put it on a mandrel.



Here are some of the fissures and craters further turning revealed. I tried to fill these with epoxy - mixed with bark dust - but wasn't totally happy with the result. It looked kind of shiny in the spots that had been filled. After that I tried to fill with wood filler - but as you can see on the finished grip below - the filler stands out.







This also has a coat of tru-oil on it to make the colors a litle richer. I'm thinking I'll go back to filling with epoxy on my next attempt. I guess I could also just varnish the whole grip and fill in the gaps that way - but then it will lose the cork feel.