Olive cup

John Jordan · Sep 3, 2022

A beauty, very nicely done.

JJ

Randy Brunzlick · Nov 17, 2022

Beautiful.
How do you keep olive wood from cracking?

Kalia Kliban · Nov 17, 2022

Randy Brunzlick said:
Beautiful.
How do you keep olive wood from cracking?

This was made from a small log that I had stashed under a pile of other things in my shop for years, so it dried in the round. It think there may have been a crack on the opposite side, but I was able to salvage this much of it. You can see some discolored heart-check at the rim just above the handle, but the cracks themselves were hairlines so I was willing to stabilize them with CA. Olive is a crapshoot. Sometimes it'll dry clear, other times it tears itself apart. Often I'll rough olive bowls, seal them heavily and then cross my fingers and wait. The wood is so dense and muscular that it can pop open in surprising ways. It's possible that boiling it, as I do with roughed-out madrone bowls, would reduce some of that internal tension. I've got a big batch of olive awaiting roughing and will have to try it out.

Randy Brunzlick · Nov 19, 2022

Kalia Kliban said:
This was made from a small log that I had stashed under a pile of other things in my shop for years, so it dried in the round. It think there may have been a crack on the opposite side, but I was able to salvage this much of it. You can see some discolored heart-check at the rim just above the handle, but the cracks themselves were hairlines so I was willing to stabilize them with CA. Olive is a crapshoot. Sometimes it'll dry clear, other times it tears itself apart. Often I'll rough olive bowls, seal them heavily and then cross my fingers and wait. The wood is so dense and muscular that it can pop open in surprising ways. It's possible that boiling it, as I do with roughed-out madrone bowls, would reduce some of that internal tension. I've got a big batch of olive awaiting roughing and will have to try it out.

Thank you for the response.
I tried boiling some small (6 inch diameter), green, rough turned bowls for an hour, letting them cool gradually in water, then removing them to dry on the shelf. Varied results. Not sure if boiling made a difference or not. Olive wood does what it wants to.

Kalia Kliban · Nov 19, 2022

Randy Brunzlick said:
Thank you for the response.
I tried boiling some small (6 inch diameter), green, rough turned bowls for an hour, letting them cool gradually in water, then removing them to dry on the shelf. Varied results. Not sure if boiling made a difference or not. Olive wood does what it wants to.

Sounds like we need more data :>) Depending on the wood my madrone results have also varied a bit but the overall effect of boiling is greatly reduced warpage. If I get any dramatic results with the olive rough-outs in the future I'll try to let you know. What did you think of the color after boiling? Did it change much?

Randy Brunzlick · Nov 20, 2022

The olive wood bowls I boiled were from orchard trees that blew over in a wind storm 2020. The olive wood was light colored. The trees were less than 50 years old. Boiling may have darkened the wood slightly. I have had older olive wood from trees planted by birds sitting on telegraph wires along railroad right of way. The right of way was abandoned in the '70's. The right of way was being revived by Niles Canyon Railway. I was lucky enough to get some of the trimmed back olive wood. The 'wild' wood was much darker in color, like the darker parts of the bowl you displayed. I sealed the 'wild' wood and dried the pieces vertically. The 'wild' olive wood seem to dry (over 2 years) with fewer cracks and less warping. Guess it was beginners luck.

Olive cup

John Jordan

Randy Brunzlick

Kalia Kliban

Randy Brunzlick

Kalia Kliban

Randy Brunzlick

Media information

Image metadata

Share this media