New Wood Source Question

Dan Mosley

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Messages
1,169
Location
Palm Springs, Ca
I got a phone call today from a guy that lives up in the mountains that will be doing some logging for the forestry. He was telling me that he will be clearing out a few different species of wood and wanted to see if I wanted any of the rements of the cuttings before he gets rid of it either to the chipper for shavings or the mill. I can get them in 6" round and up - 5-6' lengths if I want............
The types of wood he will be cutting are: Manzinita - Alder - Oak - Willow - Box Elder

Told me that the Box Elder is pretty soft for turning and suggested the Willow would be stronger wood - Oak of course would be good but bland probably in color - Alder would be good - Manzininta for small turnings and decorations.........................I have not tried alot of these type of wood

Thoughts on what others think about these types of wood ??????????
 
The willow I've turned was kinda boring. I would think that wood from up in the mountains would have some better figure than lowland trees?? With the high winds and harsher climate might lead to some crazy grain, that also might lead to unstable twisted wood though. If you have room, I'd take as much as possible. Seal the ends, keep it in log form and cut it up as you need it.
 
I've turned all of those species except willow. Grab any and all of it you can.

Manzanita is can be VERY hard wood, but worth the extra trips to the grinder to turn.

Alder is relatively soft, but it cuts nicely with sharp tools and can spalt nicely.

Oak isn't really one of my favorites, since the stuff I've turned liked to warp and crack a lot, but it finishes out nicely.

Box elder is great turning wood. Like alder, it's soft, but it cuts well with sharp tools.

And IMO, all of them will look better turned in a side grain orientation than an end grain orientation. It'll show off the grain better and help keep it from looking as bland. It'd mean smaller pieces, but that's the way I'd approach it.
 
Yeah im going to call him tomm and line up a date to get as much as i can - then seal it up and hope for the best -

Appreciate the advice on the wood - I am going to skip on the Oak because of the cracking and warping like Vaughn mentioned. I have heard others complain about Oak also and I would perfer taking the other woods to try out anyway.

Ill post whats delivered and thanks for the comments on which is better ...............
 
Willow tends to be kinda of stringy and will tear out some... or at least the local stuff I got here in Tennessee... Box elder turned nice...it's not really really soft, but will deteriorate pretty quickly out in the open... I picked up a pretty good sized log a couple of years back that had some fantastic flame in parts of... but I don't have inside storage and think I lost about half of what I got... Don't know alder, only turned a pen blank in manzinita... it was hard wood, but made beautiful pen... I have both white and red oak here... I like red oak, lots of nice grain patterns, but white oak doesn't have much pattern... if it spalts, then it's pretty... but I've noticed only the sap wood will spalt... heartwood is rather blah.

Like Don said... free wood is usually good wood.
 
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