A little cedar box

Chuck Ellis

Member
Messages
6,997
Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Just played around some yesterday... turned this piece of old cedar I had laying around... was planning a bud vase, but half way through I changed my mind and went for a lidded box... this cedar is so old that it has lots of voids and places where it's rotting... these were some deadfalls that was laying in a gully behind the area where I put my shop and I have no idea how long they have been down. The sap wood is almost a powder when it comes off, but the heart is still pretty sound, except for the voids. This piece only had a couple of little voids that I tried to fill with sawdust and CA.. sorta worked :dunno:
also after I polished it I noticed the rim of my lid has some chips.. maybe the tool wasn't as sharp as I thought or the wood's just soft :dunno::dunno:

I polished it with tripoli and carnuba.

Comments and critiques welcome.
 

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Looks nice, interesting shape. What kind of cedar is that? Looks like aromatic red, but the rotting part is confusing if it is.

I'm not sure what it is Frank, it was laying in the yard when we first bought this place about 5 years ago... after we moved in 3 1/2 years back, I started cutting and clearing the deadfalls..( wanted make sure I got rid of them so wouldn't attract snakes...:eek: can't abide snakes..)

I think it's an aromatic also, but it does have voids and holes in places in some of it. Ft. Louden Electric took one down last fall that was leaning over their power line and it was hollow up the middle... rotted up about 8 feet up the trunk.... the tree was about 2+ ft diameter at the base and I was looking forward to some nice bowl blanks from it... it's just firewood though.
I know it's not the same type of cedar we had growing around east central Texas where I grew up... those were low growing, with limbs/leaves a flat/fan shape all around the trunk, these are a different shape... this is a tall tree that loses it's branches up the trunk until near the top... I still have a couple that are green at the top but have dead branches all up the trunk from about 10-12 feet up. The trees are near 30 ft tall. It may be some form of juniper - unless cedars in USA are all forms of Juniper..... I just make sawdust, not very good at identifying trees.
 
That's a nice lookin' box Chuck. I like the shape, almost apothacary (check the spelling, i dont want to). Cedar is a real pain to turn...it's soft as my socks and can be hard to finish. I picked up some Texas cedar oil online somewhere to finish those in. :D:thumb:
 
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