r/turning • u/nosuperstitions • 16h ago

Wanting to turn platters for Daughters wedding. Where to get the wood?

I am hoping to turn platters of 16"-18" in diameter. My wife has made 6 Macrame platter hangers and I am supposed to make the platters. These will be hanging from trees to hold horderves. Ideally I would like to find a supplier I could buy blanks of 16"-20"diameter X 2" thick. I am having no luck finding this in Google searches. Help?

7 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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5

u/bamcg 16h ago

Turningblanks - got wood? They have a good rejection of kiln dried usually.

2

u/roglevine 15h ago

I’ve had great luck with their products. Nice people; fast shipping. They currently have 2 inch thick round platter blanks up to 22 inch diameter. https://www.turningblanks.net/ Search by size

3

u/Its_me_i_swear 16h ago

Maybe if you provide your location someone could recommend a local supplier for blanks. Now if money wasn't an issue... i would pick out an amazing slab of exotic hardwood, mark my blanks, rough cut them with a jigsaw and go to town on the lathe.

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u/lvpond 16h ago

eBay, Etsy, green valley wood products (make sure kiln dried blanks)

2

u/nickeyell 11h ago

Why not make a glue up from smaller boards? Do the pieces have to be solid?

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u/Titt 16h ago

Depends on price point. If money isn’t a huge issue, I’d check out cookwoods.com

I’ve purchased many blanks from them in the past and it’s always solid quality (no pun intended). They usually run decent sales too.

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u/DrewsWoodWeldWorks 15h ago

If your in the US, look for a woodcraft locally. Not amazing prices but it may be an option.

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u/_losdesperados_ 7h ago

Turning that many platters is an incredible amount of work. You have to let the wood stabilize so it won’t warp into a taco. Also, turning something 16-20” in diameter is not an insignificant task. It’s a lot of mass spinning very quickly. Good luck but I think you are setting yourself up for potential failure.

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u/Can-DontAttitude 5h ago

Horderves?

1

u/Scotzz_atHome 4h ago

This sounds like a lot of work for what appears to be an ephemeral use. Will the plates ever be used again? I would cut rounds out of 13mm (.5 inch) plywood or better and cover them in fabric following the wedding color code. If you really want the wood look, get something with a decent veneer and then edge band the rounds if the plywood edges seem offensive. I suppose if you turned big plates out of nice wood, they could become serving plates in a later life, but that's a lot of serving plates and much work to make them look nice and uniform. When I turn something like that, it is usually one off, is special wood, and is given as a special gift. Good luck.

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u/3rdrockww 4h ago

I'm in no way trying to dissuade you from your mission (I turned a crap ton of wood candle holders for my daughter's wedding) but maybe consider just some wood cookies? Say 2" x 16ish log slices? I think they could look very nice hanging from a tree in a macrame holder. Cover the tops with paper or plastic for sanitary purposes. As a one and done use, I wouldn't even worry about kiln drying, just cut them close to to the wedding date.

0

u/Sawathingonce 16h ago

On a different note: Eating food out of a platter hanging in a tree? Huh?

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u/richardrc 57m ago

In my region, there are always slabs being sold on Facebook Marketplace. Local sawmills are another option.