Bradford pear wood

[TimD]

Has anyone used wood from the Bradford flowering pear tree? A friend of mine just gave me several large (18" dia. x 24") pieces of this wood. The tree got toppled by Hurricane Ivan. He also gave me two big pcs. of mulberry tree and one big pc. of red bud tree wood & promised to bring some more of all.
I've got it all in my barn now and hope to get it split into smaller sections tomorrow so it can dry better. Cost of this wood was 1 pen with a logo on the clip for his wife and he even delivered it to my barn from about 80 miles. Now that's what you call a friend.

[pops-shop]

I have not - however - I'm sure you will make something beautiful with them.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

I have not either but I assume you know what you are doing when it comes to storing wood of any kind and keeping it from splitting on you. I know that is a whole topic in itself. Hope there is some interesting color and grain in there.

Also if this wood is branches from the tree remember these are usually refered to as"reaction wood" or "compression wood" These parts of a tree are more suseptable to warpage and twisting and shrink far more than a trunk of a tree. Turning this wood would be a better thing than using for flat wood projects. Good luck and will be looking forward to seing what you come up with over the year or so.

[TimD]

The pear tree was about 18" in dia., the mulberry is about 9" and the red bud is about 6-1/2" in dia. It's all up on a wooden floor in the barn with one side open for the old hay rack. It's completely inside out of the sunlight. I had to go the emergency room during the night and then to my doctor this morning and have 3 ribs reset into my backbone each time so I guess spitting the wood up smaller is on hold for a few days.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Now that had to be painful. Hope all gets better and you are back to as good as new, soon. Take it easy for awhile and do some planning and some web serfing.

[JoeScroller]

My dad and I made a nice bowl out of bradford pear. Its fairly soft and easy to work with.

[lonepine]

I had seen a fellow take a tool, I think they call it a froe? and split slabs off of large cut up trunks. Shingle like pieces, very board like. It seemed to work rather nice. Sort of like resawing without a band saw. Anybody heard of this?
Thanks Bob

[GrayBeard Phil]

In USA, on PBS, there is a TV show called Woodwright's Shop hosted by Roy Underhill. TV Show details Woodworking before it got mixed up electic power tools and the whole electic machine tool thing. Once did a show on Scroll Sawing with a peddle power saw from 1890's.

http://www.pbs.org/wws/

Many ( and I do mean many) of his shows he will get out his home made Froe and split out boards. He also has made several shaving horses (english and german versions) a couple of times he has shown his spring pole lathes.

Roy can cut dovetails by hand faster than many can setup their dovetail jig and set the router bit.

Aside: there are advantages to spliting planks from timber since the split will follow the grain. If done correctly, it should in theory, produce a much stonger plank of wood than a plank cut by a band saw from the timber.

[lonepine]

Phil; Would it make any difference in spliting, if the wood was fresh cut, or aged and dried? Bob

[GrayBeard Phil]

Lonepine Bob:

I don't know. My guess is it does mater.

However, IIRC, there was someone in the Western PA Woodworkers club way back when I was a member of the club who did some traditional woodworking somewhere (tourist village of some sort) and would attend a meeting now and then.

http://www.wpwoodworkers.org/

They meet once a month in the Pgh area. Great bunch of guys, and they always had a special price from a vendor on a handout flyer.

I hope you can make it to a meeting.

Phil

[lonepine]

Phil; Thanks for the info.I have a friend of mine who is an upholster and refinisher (retired) that attends these meetings.They used to be on the North Side and now moved to East Liberty. Henry and I both grew up in Lawrenceville.(the birthplace of Stephen Foster, and also an area called Arsenal, that was a munitions supplier for the Civil War). He has been trying to get me to go. I have been busy most saturdays,working or doing errands. Will try to make it sometime. Thanks again .Bob

[penturner1]

I have turned 1 pen out of it and it turnes very good. :)




Jared Schmidt 15 yrs. old

[William Young]

Hhmmm . . . A topic from way back in Feb of 2006 revisited.

Hope the original poster made some nice things with that wood. It is wonderful wood for turning on a lathe. By now it should be nice and dry but would probably have been put to better use if it was turned green if it was big enough for bowls.

Jared. Nice to see a 15 year old turning pens. Would love to see a picture of that one.
W.Y.