I have begun to collect a list of the types of wood I've been fortunate to turn, some of which is very familiar in most woodturning circles, and some which, though know to them, is so rare, that only a few have probably turned it. I thought it might be helpful to you, my visitor, to know a little more about these different species of wood. I hope you find this page useful. To make it just a bit easier to find the type of wood you're looking for, I have provided a Alphabet Ring near the top of this page. If a letter is highlighted/underlined, then it has at least one wood type defined underneath it. Keep watch on this page, as it will continue to grow and grow with great information about the wood I use, and the tree/shrub it comes from. If you have any further questions, please free to contact me. Enjoy!
Each of my turned pieces is unique with its own colors and textures. I turn a wide variety of wood gathered from local forests. In addition to maple, an array of hardwoods such as cherry, beech, elm, oak burl, willow, box elder and dogwood are available. I search for dead and down trees, keeping an eye out for spalted woods and burls . The wood chosen is not prime for lumber. Logs that birds or other forest dwellers have chosen for their own purposes are not disturbed.
Once one of the most important trees in Eastern North America, the American Chestnut tree covered an area that stretched from as far south as Mississippi and Georgia all the way up to Maine and into Ontario Canada. Huge forests of these magnificent trees covered so much area, such as the central Appalachians' ridge tops, that during their flowering, in early summer, their canopies of creamy-white flowers gave the mountain tops a snowcapped appearance to the eye! The giants among the American Chesnuts towered as much as 100 feet or more, with girths at their base of more than five feet in diameter! Straight and true they grew, sometimes as high as 50 feet before branching out, a single tree could fill entire railroad cars with boards cut from its long straight trunk!
The American Chestnut was one of the best for timber, not only because of the sheer amount of long straight boards that could be cut from it, but also because, with its straight grain, lighter weight than oak, and its easiness to be worked, it could be used for just about anything and everything: from telephone and telegraph poles, railroad ties, shingles and paneling, to fine furniture, musical instruments and even pulp and plywood. One of its most important characteristics was its high resistance to rot, making it equal to the majestic redwood for durability. This was tree that would stand through time.
And, of course, the principle crop descending from the trees, the wonderful glossy brown chestnuts, was an important cash crop for many Appalachian families. Year-end holidays would find railcars full of these nutss shipped to New York, Philadelphia and other major cities where they were then sold on the street by vendors at kiosks.
Then, around 1904, discovered in New York City, the blight, an Asian fungus, known today as Cryphonectria parasitica, began attacking the American Chestnut tree population, with such devastating effects that, by 1950, more than 3.5 billion trees covering more than 9 million acres had been annihilated. With the exception of shrubby root sprouts which the species continues to produce, and which also quickly become infected with this blight, this keystone species of North America has all but disappeared.
Constant research by geneticists and tree pathologists promise a blight-resistant tree, and to be sure, those trees that have, for whatever reason, escaped the blight through a natural resistance, are used to take scions from them to graft into others, with the hopes of rebuilding the long-gone forests of the American Chestnut.
For this reason, we can speak with utmost certainty that, until that time happens when the American Chestnut again reigns in the forests of North America, it reamins America's rarest wood!
Basswood (Tilia americana , also known as "linden" in Europe) is a decidous native tree from New Brunswick to Virginia and west to Texas, and grows to 4o to 60 feet high with 20 to 25-feet spreads. The trunk grows straight, and the wood has a fine straight grain with an even texture and little contrast between early and late wood. The wood is creamy white in color and lightweight, as opposed to the European Lime.
The Black Walnut tree (Juglans nigra L) is an extremely valuable forest tree, found abudnantly in North Carolina and Virginia, has tough wood with even but coarse texture, straing grain with only occasional wavy grain patterns. It usually only grows well in rich bottomland, in moist coves and on lower slopes. The sapwood is light in color contrasting with the superior quality, highly valued, rich dark chocolate brown to purplish black, hard heartwood. The black walnut tree can grow to reach 50 to 90 feet tall, with diameters of two to three feet.
Bocote (Cordia gerascanthus, family Boraginaceae, also known by many other names throughout Mexico, Central America and South America) grows to be both small and large trees, sometimes reaching heights of 100 feet. The heartwood can have spectacular background colors ranging from tobacco brown to red, with multicolored strips that vary from yellow to orange to green to dark brown, all with a more or less oily or waxy appearance. This is a somewhat hard-to-find wood, and when cut fresh, has a slight, pleasant fragrance.
The Box Elder tree (Acer negundo), which belongs to the Maple family, can grow to 65 feet and produces feather-like leaves, with 3 to 5 leaflets arranged in opposition to each other on the stem. The leaflets can grow lance-like to oblong in shape, with margins sometimes separated into several shallow lobes. Interestingly, the box elder is "dioecious" -- that means that the male and female plants are separate from one another, with the male bearing stamens in umbel-like arrangements, and the female plant producing apetalous (having no petals) flowers in racemes (clustering of stalked flowers arranged singly along an oblong, unbranched axis). More than you knew (or probably wanted to know) about box elder, hmm? but, wait! There's more.
The box elder is a native species to most of Wisconsin, where it was once largely restricted to wet deciduous forests, prior to the arrival of European settlers. Since then, however, it has come to find a home in uplands and disturbed, abandoned fields and forests, where they have been found to thrive in every type of habitat, ranging from the wettest to driest, even in any clear area of urban city space, throughout the state, and reaching even up into the upper peninsula of Michigan. It has even been found to grow natively in Illinois.
The box elder plays host to the Box Elder Bug (Leptocoris trivittatus) which becomes active during warm spring and summer days and comes out of hiding. Although these insects suck the sap from the leaves and flowers of host plants, they do not do much damage, nor are they vectors for human disease (thank goodness!) nor will they damage or harm food or fabrics -- except that their excretions can stain.
Brazilian Purpleheart (of the family Peltogyne), common to tropical American areas like Mexico, Central and South America, Guyana and Trinidad, is quite unusual to find growing anywhere in the U.S. The tree varies in size according to where it grows, but an average height of 120 feet or more is not uncommon, with trunk base diameters of more than 3.5 feet! What makes this particular tree most spectacular is its chameleon-like quality in color change!
When the tree is first cut, the heartwood is a dull brown, which then quickly changes to a beautiful purple upon exposure (oxidation), gradually toning down to a darker brown over time. Its sapwood is creamy off-white in color, and the wood sports a straight, to wavy or interlocked grain, with moderately fine texture. Most wood workers and turners find the wood moderately hard to work, but find that the wood takes on a glossy, lustrous finish. Purpleheart is mostly used commercially as industrial heavy construction, boat flooring and decking, outdoor furniture and tool handles.
Cherry (Prunus serotina ), belongs to the rose family. American colonists used the cherry for its fruit, for medicinal properties and for their home furnishings. The juice of the cherry was mixed with rum to make a Cherry Bounce, a popular drink for the colonists. They used the bark to produce drugs to treat bronchitis, and the stalks were used to make tonics. It grows throughout the Midwestern and Eastern United States, from Pennsylvania to New York and into Virginia and West Virginia. The average height of the Cherry is 60 to 80 feet, and specimens are known to live as long as 150 to 200 years. The wood presents a hard straight grain with firm texture. The heartwood is reddish brown to deep red, with brown flecks, and it will naturally darken with age. This is found throughout Virginia. Interesting trivia: Early printers used cherry for their engraving blocks!
This wood is from the drier uplands on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico. Somewhat variable in color, the heartwood is usually a deep rich dark red or orange with black striping. It is an oily, fine textured, straight- to interlocked-grained wood. This spectacular wood comes from small irregular formed trees and is very rare in a large bowl. No live tree has been cut to produce any of my cocobolo bowls.
Jarrah (family Jarrah Eucalyptus marginata), found in Australia, can grow to 130 feet high in favorable conditions, with a diameter up to 6 feet. The Jarrah presents dark red to reddish brown wood. It has a coarse texture but finishes beautifully. Jarrah is one of Australia's most important commercial hardwoods that grow in the southwest of Western Australia, mainly in the forests where rainfall is in the 30-50 inch per annum range. It occurs in almost pure stands where mature trees have been known to be over 600 years old. However, in poor conditions, it may only grow to 6 feet in height. It is now being used extensively as an extremely attractive cabinet timber.
This stock has been harvested from the forests of Virginia. Maple burl sometimes has olive or greenish-black discolored areas known as mineral streak or mineral stain, which may be due to injury. This creates an unusual one-of-a-kind look that Mother Nature has produced and cannot be duplicated. No live tree has been cut to produce any of my maple burl bowls.
Big Leaf Maple (from the family acer macrophyllum, prevalent in areas of British Columbia, also known as Broadleaf Maple, Oregon Maple and Quilted Maple, is well-named, as its leaves are very large (some might say enormous) with stems that are often nearly as long as the leaf itself. It is the largest and fastest growing maple in Canada. In the forest, its narrow crown is supported by a branch-free stem for half the tree's entire length, but when it is grown out in the open, where it doesn't have vie for room, there can be seen a few large, spreading branches supporting a broader crown that its forest siblings.
It is an important food source in the forest, with the nuts and seeds providing sustenance to small animals and birds, and its twigs and small branches providing food for larger animals such as elk and deer. One outstanding characteristic of the tree is actually not part of the tree itself, but is the moss that is often found draping from its boughs.
The Bigleaf Maple can grow to upwards to 118 to 120 feet. Its flowers are greenish-yellow purple in color when they first bloom, and its pollen cones are yellow, hanging down in clusters. Its bark is a greyish brown, and as the tree ages, its bark takes on shallow grooves, giving it a distinctive texture.
Its wood characteristics sport a close grain with moderate hardness, and is used today in building furniture, interior finishing, musical instruments, etc. Its flowers, which are edible, can be mixed in with salads (now there's one for the recipe books!) Of course, the inner bark is used in making baskets, ropes and whisks; the young shoots can actually be eaten, and, of course, let's not forget the sap that is used as, you guessed it, a type of maple syrup.
Traditional uses were for making dishes, pipes, clothing hooks and paddles, and it is a fine wood for wood turning, whether for spindle work or for larger vessels and hollow forms.
Mesquite Algarroba (also known as honey mesquite, honey locust and western honey mesquite, of the family Prosopis juliflora) is native to the Southwestern part of the U.S. and to Northern Mexico, from the Gulf Coast, the Caribbean islands from Mexico to Venezuela, also called Algarroba. This particular wood is prized for its honey color and interesting figure.
Purpleheart is a medium to heavy wood with tight, fairly straight grain with moderate to coarse texture. Bright purple when it is first cut, the wood darkens to brownish purple with exposure. Extremely hard dense wood, it claims to be three to five times harder than red oak.
Red Oak (Quercus Rubra L.) also called the Northern Red Oak, is widely distributed in the eastern United States, where it is especially abundant in Virginia, up into southeastern Canada, and it can grow up to 75 feet tall. Red oak makes for a useful and fairly inexpensive wood. This non-durable, straight-grained, coarse textured wood grows very fast, sometimes as much as a foot a year in some ecosystems. Its color ranges from light cream, pinkish red to dark tan or golden brown. Outside of interior woodworking, red oak is used for hardwood flooring since it is fairly inexpensive and has a beautiful grain when finished.
The Sassafras Tree (Sassafras albidum, of the family LauraceaeLaurel) is a somewhat small- to medium-sized tree, which grows predominantly in the Eastern United States and into Canada, but also found as far west as Eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan (it has become extinct in Wisconsin). The smaller tree, which is little more than a shrub, is found mostly in the northern parts of the U.S and Canada(extreme southern Ontario), while the largest of the trees can be found in the Great Smokey Mountains (due to its moist, sandy, well-drained loams). The sassafras tree is a moderately fast-growing, aromatic tree. Although the lightweight wood, soft and brittle as it is, has little commercial value (don't tell a woodturner that, though!), the sassafras yields an oil which is extracted from the root bark to make perfume. Moreover, the roots, bark and leaves, all three, give off a spiced scent, and the oils from them are used in soapmaking and in flavoring drinks. Sassafras tea, anyone?
The distinctive leaves of the sassafras tree, which can grow to be as large as six inches in length and four in width, can actually take on up to four different shapes: an elliptical shape, a three-lobed shape, a two-lobed shape opening on the left, and a two-lobed shape opening on the right. In fact, the two-lobed shapes look strikingly like mittens! Another recipe addition - add the leaves to soups and stews to thicken them.
The bark of the sassafras tree is reddish-brown and is furrowed, making it stand out from other trees quite easily. The orange wood has been used in making and repairing wooden barrels and tubs, buckets, wooden posts, and furniture; it is also used in woodturning (but of course). One other thing you might not know -- the sassafras tree's wood is good for restoring depleted soils in overworked and old fields.
The zebrawood tree (Leguminosae family) is named for its distinguished zebra-like dark and light striping. This particular popular name "zebrawood" is shared among several different woods that have this particular appearance. Its most common occurrence is in West Africa. They are an equatorial tree, and most commonly grows in pure stands along riverbanks. The zebrawood tree can grow to heights of 150 feet with trunk diameters of 4 to 5 feet. When the timber is cut, the wet wood gives off an unpleasant smell, which quickly disappears as the wood dries. This is a medium to heavy hardwood with possible coarse to very coarse grain texture depending upon how it is cut, and its color ranges from golden yellow with streaks, to dark brown or even black.
As I mentioned earlier, this page is a work in progress. I will be adding to this page often. Please come back soon to see what is new! Tell your friends to visit often as well.
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