Hawthorn?

[Tom Albrecht]

Anybody on here ever turned Hawthorn? The local city forester has offered some to me.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

It is very much like apple. I have a piece that I turned 15 years ago out of a firewood pile that I am quite certain is Hawthorne. It was starting to spalt and has lots of interesting grain etc. Have seen references in Woodturning Magazine. Remembered I can pull image from my Picturetrail site.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Thanks Mike, I'm looking forward to this new-to-me wood.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I have turned a few logs of Crataegus (Hawthorn), as there are numerous different ones from shrubs (used to make hedges as I remember from my hometown in the Netherlands) to good sized log sizes, see pictures, these are from the Arboritum in Ottawa were we do go a few times, (good place to get seeds) and practice our tree knowledge.





What I found is that the wood is dense and turns just fine, as the early and late wood is very homogeneous there is hardly any grain differences, and it also was in the ones I turned a very weak wood in that the wood would easily split/separate, the bowl pictured here just kept splitting at the narrow part close to the center/pith area, and so I have kept it for ourselves, I also turned a few pieces with natural edges bark-on bowls.

All these where turned before we had our digital camera, and these pictures are just copies from film pictures we made from some turnings we made and sold, except for this bowl we kept.

9½”X 3½” and spalted, with barely noticeable year-rings or early-late-wood as you can see.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Thanks Leo.

 

[robo hippy]

There are ornamental Hawthorne which tend to have lots of bark inclusions, which are great for natural edge bowls. The wild type tend to have round trunks like the one in Leo's picture. The wood does have a pinkish tint to it, at least from the pieces I have seen. It is fairly hard, but smooth grained. It does have thorns...

robo hippy

 

[Bob Chapman]

I've used it on several occasions. When not spalted it is a pale cream-pink coloured timber with a very tight grain. It was once used for making 'nit' combs and if you imagine how fine and close together the teeth of such a comb are, you get some idea of how fine and tight the grain of the wood must be. It turns smoothly and leaves a fine finish from the tool which needs hardly any sanding. It can take a screw thread well. With good reason I call it 'poor man's boxwood'.

 

[John Torchick]

Thanks for the information and photos, Leo. Interesting grain and figuring with the open places.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

There are ornamental Hawthorne which tend to have lots of bark inclusions, which are great for natural edge bowls. The wild type tend to have round trunks like the one in Leo's picture. The wood does have a pinkish tint to it, at least from the pieces I have seen. It is fairly hard, but smooth grained. It does have thorns...

robo hippy

Reed, the older Hawthorn trees growing in Southern Ontario’s fence rows have often a ribbed like trunk, and yes long hard thorns as my son found out.

As I had asked him to give me a hand to load a log into my truck, as he stepped over the log and gave it a push it rolled, didn’t say a thing until we got home, wanted a pair of pliers to pull out a thorn,well that didn’t work of course as the muscle clamped down on the thorn, so a trip to the ER and after a muscle relaxing shot, the thorn was removed, it was better than 2 inches long.

Anyway these trees grow often in abandened fields and windrows, pretty trees in spring and the logs look often like this, the reason for the slits in the bowl I showed.

 

[robo hippy]

An arborist friend said it is also called 'the Mother of the Oak' because the acorns could fall down in around the hawthorn trees, and the thorns would keep anything that wanted to eat them out... The wild hawthorn I have seen here are usually in a mixed forest with ash, choke cherry, oak, and a few other types. They have no bark inclusions. Makes me wonder if they grow differently in the forest than they do in a fence row... Most common fence row tree around most of the US is the Osage. They have thorns as well, at least when young...

robo hippy

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

An arborist friend said it is also called 'the Mother of the Oak' because the acorns could fall down in around the hawthorn trees, and the thorns would keep anything that wanted to eat them out... The wild hawthorn I have seen here are usually in a mixed forest with ash, choke cherry, oak, and a few other types. They have no bark inclusions. Makes me wonder if they grow differently in the forest than they do in a fence row... Most common fence row tree around most of the US is the Osage. They have thorns as well, at least when young...

robo hippy

Over here Hawthorn does grow usually in full sun and it’s shape is much like an Apple tree, just like in this picture, my son has several growing on the open area of his property.

I did try to find something on “Mother of the Oak” on the net and came up empty, maybe it is only used by him or very locally only.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Well, here's what I found at the the city log pile.

Not much to work with in this one:


And this one is so big, I'm not sure it's Hawthorn?

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Tooth-picks from the first one Tom, maybe it’s a Crab-apple ?, probably not.

Some interesting bowls/vases could be made from the large one, if it is too large to turn as is, I would cut it up, something like this.

Or else you could get a very interesting shallow bowl/platter if turned endgrain wise.