Elm for Kitchenware

[Steve Reckner]

I know of the species commonly used for kitchenware, but I've not seen elm mentioned for bowls, scoops, etc. Is there any reason to not use it?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Donna Banfield]

In my opinion, it has a very strong smell, which some may find offensive. Every time it gets wet, and as kitchen ware it will, the smell will increase.

 

[Raul McCai]

I know of the species commonly used for kitchenware, but I've not seen elm

I'll use it for light duty applications but for anything that's going to get a lot of wear it's too soft.

 

[Bill Boehme]

All elms are ring porous which is one reason they probably aren't used. There are at least eight species of elm. Several are very hard and others are soft. As Donna said, elm stinks. Sort of like a feed lot. I haven't checked to see if that is true for all elm species. I use maple for treenware.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I have used Dutch Elm and Chinese Elm successfully for bowls and never noticed an off odor. Maybe it's because I sealed them with bowl finish?

And thanks for posting a great question here instead of in the "Newbie" section. We all have something to learn no matter how long we've been at it.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Plus 1+ on the elm smells, I picked up a load of elm several years ago, and every time
I throw a blank on the lathe it sure does remind you of a strong odor of a hog confinement
or something along that lines. Many people refer to it as piss elm. Once the wood dries you
don't notice the odor, it is usually the green wood being turned that you will notice the odor.

 

[Raul McCai]

Elm Schmelm There's a bucket load of different kinds of elm. I have a lot of Siberian Elm and there's no odor, not really hard a scosh less so than cherry, it's very springy, gorgeous with a little BLO, lots of neat pealescent flecks in the grain when rift sawn. But when it's dry turning it demands robust DC because it makes so much super fine dust. However it machines up like Buttah.

 

[Steve Reckner]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Now I know. I was thinking I might use a piece for a rolling pin, but I'll go with cherry or maple that I have.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Now I know. I was thinking I might use a piece for a rolling pin, but I'll go with cherry or maple that I have.

Definitely Cherry or Maple for a rolling pin over any Elm.

 

[Roy Hennagir]

I have access to quite a bit of the stuff.

Im just learning bowl turning so I have made quite a few of these practice bowls from Elm. I use them to hold screws and bolts in the shop.

I prefer it for my seat bottoms. It is horrible stuff to try and split and that makes it really good for seat bottoms. Once it drys I don't notice any smell from it.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Oh yeah, I remember trying to split it when we had wood heat for the house. It's even tough on hydraulic splitters.
That's a nice bowl in the photo, pretty color too.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Roy,

Looks like you are having fun, the Elm woods can provide some interesting turned pieces. I need to get a
saw mill setup for my chain saw, that would speed up the processing of the tree into various types of blanks.
A portable trailer mounted saw mill would be great tool for any wood turner or wood turning club. 🙂

 

[Roy Hennagir]

Not to veer to far off the subject but that mill was easy to make. I can sort of weld and I did it from pictures. It's about $20 worth of steel.

I slab a lot of wood for outside benches, when they get trashed I then cut them into firewood for heat.

I heat my house with wood so I cut a lot of wood.

When we were kids my dad would have us cut the elm and leave it in firewood sized pieces by the road. People would steal the nice pile of oak and haul it home to burn. Back then we split by hand and we all hated that stuff. It smells pretty bad when you burn it. My dad alway figured some folks weren't to happy around their campfires with scent of the "free oak firewood". Smells like someone peed on the fire while it burns.

I built a log splitter so I don't suffer the interlocked grain problems any longer.

I really like how elm looks when it's turned. This particular tree has a lot of depth to the figure. It looks like you should be able to feel the ridges.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Here's a small elm crotch bowl that I turned 17 years ago. We use it on a daily basis, hence the chipped edge.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Roy,

Some of the crotch pieces from Elm wood can provide some great pieces for wood turning.
You can really get some interesting wood grain when you take the time sanding and finishing it.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Tom,

That' what I am talking about!

 

[Roy Hennagir]

I'm new here so I'm not sure how to reply to individuals, some forums want quotes, others don't. If I'm doing it wrong steer me in the correct direction.

I'm on my tenth bowl (that survived) or so out of elm. Are they still bowls if you go through the bottom?

The grain in the elm is pretty random, I get crisp beautiful cut sections and then fur like I went the wrong direction on dogs fur. Is this Elm, or standard bowl turning. I've been a hobby wood worker for passing 30 years now. Lots of handplane and drawknife work so I get the grain thing.

I keep every crotch I find. I've slabbed a lot of them out over the years and have found lots of beautiful wood. The bowl Tom made is exactly why I want the crotch wood. My fellow wood burners will even help load all the crotch wood as they don't care to split it.

How do you figure out where to cut a crotch for turning. Two pith's converging make it hard to cut out the pith. It's easy when slabbing them for flatwork.

 

[hockenbery]

The grain in the elm is pretty random, I get crisp beautiful cut sections and then fur like I went the wrong direction on dogs fur. Is this Elm, or standard bowl turning.

How do you figure out where to cut a crotch for turning. Two pith's converging make it hard to cut out the pith. It's easy when slabbing them for flatwork.

The grain in elm is not totally straight but I have found it easy to cut.
Often the fuzzy part is all at the back side of the endgrain ( the end grain comes by the tool rest twice the backside is just after the center line of the tree passes the tool rest. The fuzz& tearout on the backside of the endgrain can't be eliminated all together but it can can go way down to hard to see without magnifiers. Cut from foot to rim and orient the cutting edge in the direction of the cut.

For how I cut the crotches, see the PDF in a thread in the tips on turning natural edge bowls from crotches
http://www.aawforum.org/community/index.php?threads/naural-edge-bowl-from-a-crotch.11058/

Basically brace the crotch log so that the two piths from the upper part of the Y are vetical. Then rip straight down like I show in the slides. This cuts all three piths.
Now I sometimes rip to one side of the pith so that the tenon will be on the other side of the pith giving me a little more flame grain in the piece and almos not flame grain in the other crotch.

Also the video will give some tips useful for cut rim bowls too.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Hey Roy, you're doing fine here. This kind of post is what it's all about as far as i'm concerned-- we all end up learning something.

 

[Roy Hennagir]

Hockenbery,
I found that video prior to this and learned a lot from it. Obviously it's way adadvanced for me but seeing how to address the tool to the wood helps a lot. Explaining how to center the wood for the best display was something that did not occur to me either. Thankfully my bad habits were learned a couple decades ago in High School and have mostly been forgotten. However I was taught that the bottom of the flute, meaning the curved part was for cutting. Stabbing a bowl gouge into the wood like that made bowl turning into a violent sport pretty fast.

Tom,
Thanks, I started on pens but they are not turning out to be my thing. With piles of free wood everywhere it seemed as though I may as well try my hand at bigger things. Imagine my horror when I went down stairs the next day. My first surviving, nice round little bowl had become a taco shaped, cracked, modern art sculpture. Apparently drying wood is an art form too!

Wood heat and bowl drying don't go together.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Roy,

Turning green wood creates another set of challenges for the wood worker. There are a number of solutions you can apply to the bowl turning process to reduce cracking and warping of green wood. Some wood turners will allow the bowl to warp which provides an aged distressed look to the piece. You will find that everyone on this site will have a slightly different solution for the green wood warping problem, plenty of information and videos that address this problem.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

lot's of info in the forum on drying roy, it probably comes up once a month.

 

[Owen Lowe]

I'm new here so I'm not sure how to reply to individuals, some forums want quotes, others don't. If I'm doing it wrong steer me in the correct direction.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any criticism for quoting or not, though it makes it easier to follow the reply if quoted portions are included. (I may have gone a little overboard with this reply.)

I'm on my tenth bowl (that survived) or so out of elm. Are they still bowls if you go through the bottom?

When is a bowl a funnel? When you go through the bottom!

The grain in the elm is pretty random, I get crisp beautiful cut sections and then fur like I went the wrong direction on dogs fur. Is this Elm, or standard bowl turning. I've been a hobby wood worker for passing 30 years now. Lots of handplane and drawknife work so I get the grain thing.

That’s the deal with elm — the interlocking grain dictates that clean-then-fuzzy surface you get on the lathe. It’s also why elm has historically been a very good wood choice where splitting is undesirable, like using it for wagon wheels. Make as clean a cut as you can and then you’re going to have to sand.

How do you figure out where to cut a crotch for turning. Two pith's converging make it hard to cut out the pith. It's easy when slabbing them for flatwork.

I find the plane that includes all three pith centers and then mark equal distances above and below that plane to make my cuts. It can be a challenge to align but usually works out well enough. Keep in mind that when turning a crotch for figure, you want the inner-most crotch section to be the bottom of the turning. If you orient the bark as the outside of a bowl, all of the crotch figure will end up on the floor.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I'm new here so I'm not sure how to reply to individuals, some forums want quotes, others don't. If I'm doing it wrong steer me in the correct direction.

I'm on my tenth bowl (that survived) or so out of elm. Are they still bowls if you go through the bottom?

The grain in the elm is pretty random, I get crisp beautiful cut sections and then fur like I went the wrong direction on dogs fur. Is this Elm, or standard bowl turning. I've been a hobby wood worker for passing 30 years now. Lots of handplane and drawknife work so I get the grain thing.

I keep every crotch I find. I've slabbed a lot of them out over the years and have found lots of beautiful wood. The bowl Tom made is exactly why I want the crotch wood. My fellow wood burners will even help load all the crotch wood as they don't care to split it.

How do you figure out where to cut a crotch for turning. Two pith's converging make it hard to cut out the pith. It's easy when slabbing them for flatwork.

The simplest way to reply to a specific post is to click on Reply as shown in the attached photo. That is the method that I used to quote your post. It will open up the editor with your post automatically inserted between [QUOTE="....] at the beginning and [/QUOTE] at the end. Place your reply after the end of the quoted message. Also you will find that almost everything on these pages is a clickable link. Play around to see how many things that you can discover. Hover the mouse over an avatar or their name and click to find more information about the person.Click on their number of messages or their location. Hover over your name at the top right of each page and you will get a menu of various options. Hover over alerts and you will get a list of threads that you have subscribed to. Then there is the gallery and many other things to experiment with.

 

[Roy Hennagir]

I find the plane that includes all three pith centers and then mark equal distances above and below that plane to make my cuts. It can be a challenge to align but usually works out well enough. Keep in mind that when turning a crotch for figure, you want the inner-most crotch section to be the bottom of the turning. If you orient the bark as the outside of a bowl, all of the crotch figure will end up on the floor.

My first quote! I'm learning.

I'm glad you told me this. I just tonight dug out a crotch from my pile to cut for tomorrows adventure in funnel making, I would have done the exact opposite. Thinking multi dimensionally while trying to see through the wood is fun.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Here is another 17 year old elm bowl (10"D).

 

[Roy Hennagir]

I made a couple mallets and a canning masher out of some of the dead part of the tree. It was dead a long time and really pretty dry.

I would imagine those mallets won't be prone to breaking since Elm is so difficult to split.

I'm going to have more than I can use in three lifetimes when I can get the rest. It's a mud hole right now.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Elm is actually a wood I like turning, smelly ??, well IMO all woods smell, be it Oak or Maple or Cherry, Walnut or Elm, Cocobolo or Cedar and the list goes on.

The thing is that I have never smelled Elm again after it has dried or any of the other woods, returning drie wood one barely get a smell off of those woods.

As it happens I have a few of the left over pieces of treenware sitting here, and two spatulas are from Elm wood, look good and work just fine,after some use you might smell the bacon grease on it 🙂



Other turnings from Elm, White and Rock and Siberian Elm, drying Elm goes also very easy without any problems for me.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Wow, all this Elm talk and those great looking bowls above make me want to get to the city's cut tree yard and scrounge around. I do have my eye on one large standing tree in the neighborhood that has been looking less healthy each year and it has several large burls. It is on a city parkway and if it doesn't leaf out this spring I'll call the city forester asap.

And, back to the original question--- I agree with what Leo said above about the smell of all woods.