Mesquite

[Greg Kaldor]

Hi All,
I have a couple of good friends driving out to Arizona in Feb. and have offered to pick up some mesquite for me. That leads me to 3 questions. Where do I tell them to go? How much can I expect to pay? How does this wood behave on the lathe? My skill level is intermediate. Thanks.
Greg

 

[Steve Worcester]

I can answer #3, how does it behave.

Mesquite is the only wood that will dry in a 1:1 ration radially and tangentially. What this means is far less cracking on wet turnings. The bigger problem is that mesquite is very prone to heart checks and ring checks. Heart checks glue pretty easy, but if it gets ring checks (wind checks) it tends to grow mold up though the rings and becomes fairly worthless and that part needs to be cut out.

As a green wood it turns wonderfully cross grain, and is a pain end grain. Dry, it is ok, but pretty hard and is real dusty (wear A MASK!).
Dry wood also make terrible fire wood, but good for barbecue smoking, which is what you end up doing with the checked wet wood. But it does finish real well and takes a good polish.

I would contact the clubs in the area and ask for assistance in obtaining the wood and what a fair price in their area is. Here, the burl goes for $1-$4 pound and in large quantities the logs go for $2-$6 bd/ft.