apple wood?

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corgicoupe

corgicoupe

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Smoke Rise, GA
A friend gave me a 5' length of the trunk of an apple tree that he removed from his yard. At one end is the root ball, an the other is the fork of several main branches. Have any of you turned pens from apple wood? I'm thinking the two ends might have some interesting grain. I know that saw handles were made from apple because of the intertwining grain. Might look nice on a fountain pen?
 
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What Terry said - the ends sound like they might have some interesting grain & colors. You might try getting some of the uninteresting middle section to spalt. I would keep a 1' to 2' piece of the middle section and wrap it with a few layers of plastic wrap and leave it alone for a year or two to see what happens. Other methods of encouraging spalting have been discussed in past threads. The plastic wrap method works great in our wonderful gulf coast humidity, but other techniques might work better in other areas.

Have fun & show us what you get out of that tree.
 
I've turned apple wood. What a I have turned was very hard. Harder than oak, but not quite as hard as pecan. Be sure to get the ends sealed up quickly. The wood I had was terrible about splitting while it dried. There was quite a bit of checking even with sealed ends.
 
The sapwood is a cream color and can be boring by itself, the heartwood has a beautiful color. Mixed in a pen, it can be really nice. All fruit woods crack very easily. For pen blanks, I cut the blanks 1x1x6. Stack like a chimney on the floor for the first couple of weeks. You need a slow start to the drying unless you absolutely must use one, then use the microwave. After a few weeks, move it to the attic.
 
This piece has been under his deck for about a year. I'll know more when I cut off the root ball and the branch fork, probably this weekend.
 
If it's been under a deck for a year in Georgia, it's full of cracks, bugs, and fungi/mold. Be really careful working that in your shop, because it'll likely have powder post beetles, eggs, larvae, or all of the above. I'd also imagine termites.
 
I've seen some really interesting pens & bottle stoppers made from apple wood.
Some of it has a really neat grain pattern, some not so much.

The only way to find out is to turn some.
Then, post pics so we can all drool...er..look at it. :smile:
 
corgicoupe said:
. . . Have any of you turned pens from apple wood? . . .
Click to expand...


I have found fruitwoods to be extremely easy to work with, and the grain and color to be extremely pleasing. (think of Olive!)

The "crazy grain" will be in the ball and the forks, but don't discount the straight branches and trunks!!

It's definitely like chocolate... "Ya neva know what ya gonna git".

As others have mentioned, get past the cracking, look for the grain, and practice "safe turning" with that dust!

and post pics, fruitwood is one of my favs! :biggrin:
 
I had a smallish apple tree that died and I cut it down and up then stacked it on a gravel driveway with the intent of using it for fire wood or smoking on the grill. I laid there for a year or more before I began heating my shop with it. I split a larger piece to find that it had spalted and I began to pull it from the fire and quench it. That bit of tree has provided me with some beautiful spalted pen blanks. Thurns very nicely and a CA finish make it pop. Cut it a bit and see what you have.
WB
 
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