Pop,
It turns great. The wood tends to be soft and I found it important to sharpen frequently. That's probably just a good habit to have anyway. Use a soft touch when sanding as it 'gouges' easily. This was very wet wood and really dirtied up the tools, tool rest, live center and the bed ways.
Sam,
Someone gave some to me, a mixture of bees wax, mineral spirits, and diatomaceous earth (I think). Lots of recipes out there. Yorkshire Grit tends to be expensive to me.
Matt,
I soak in soap to cut down on cracking although the Bradford Pear seems to do okay with or without. This bowl was cut from the next up from the bottom log cut. The bottom log was a little punky so I didn't spend a lot of energy on that. If you look at the light spot toward the rim of the bowl that is the only about a 1/4-1/2" inch from the pith, and it was about to get punky. This was the only piece of the 10-15 bowls I turned from this tree that got soaped. Usually I soap about everything.