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Pear Wood?

William Young

William Young

Joined
Dec 14, 2004
Messages
254
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Location
Wynndel, British Columbia, Canada
Website
www.picturetrail.com
Has anyone here had any experience with turning pear wood? My neighbor called and he is cutting down a couple old pear trees tomorrow and I am going to take my chainsaw and help him cut it all up into firewood.
He said I can have any usefull pieces in it I want.
The trees are quite old so I suspect the main trunk will be hollow. Anything solid enough or big enough for bowls I will turn green to within 10% of final and them get them all happy in an alcohol bath . 😀
But what about smaller limbs that would be big enough for endgrain turning of boxes etc. Should I just seal the ends of those and give them plenty of drying time before turning them ?? . With a rule of thumb air drying time being one year to the inch for sawed lumber, how long would one expect to have to wait for small round logs like this to be dry enough for turning.
W.Y.
 
Pearwood

Wm, I have turned lots and lots of pearwood. It is wonderful stuff and turns like a dream! It will hold a sharp detail to the point of extreme and that is why it has been used for years by professional model makers of aircraft wings, etc. I have turned some lovely finials of pear. Try to keep the trunks in log form, sealed up, until you need to use it. The color is a light brown when dry and there is not much grain vizible so the form itself becomes more important. Enjoy! Phil
 
Ed;
There should not be much danger of pestisides in these three old trees we will be cutting down shortly. They are VERY old and are out in a pasture field and havn't been spayed for many moons. They produced lots of wormy pears due to lack of proper care and spraying etc and the pears get gobbled up every fall by his cattle as they come off the trees as windfall; 😉
Got my chainsaw all sharpened up. Gotta go put it to use.
Will report later on what I was able to salvage. The trees are so old that I am quite sure the big bottom trunks will be hollow but hopefully will produce some good solid areas up above the hollow parts.
W.Y.
 
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Well , I am somewhat dissapointed 🙁 with what I was able to salvage out of those pear trees. I had no idea that those trees were planted in the early 1900's.
I didnt even know pear trees ever got to that age.
The guy that I got this wood from is retired now and said those were mature trees back in 1930 when his parents bought the acerage.
Needless to say there was lots of rot and waste but even so , there is still quite a bit of usefull pieces that can be salvaged out of it.
But all is not lost. I take free firewood anywhere I can get it.
W.Y.


Pear%20Wood.jpg
 
Nice Work

Thanks Allen;
I suppose it is natural to assume that the mallet was turned from entirely dry woods.

How about the bowl which is one of the nicest natural edge bowls I have seen. I have never tried a natural edge bowl yet. Was it turned and finished all at once and allowed to create it's own shape when drying or was it rough turned to within approx 10% and then final turned after drying. If the latter, what method of drying do you use and/or prefer ?
W.Y.
 
Background Information

Good Evening William,

The head of the mallet was turned from a blank that I harvested just about 3 years ago. The green blank came from a pretty good sized pear tree that suffered from much of the internal decay that also appears in your log pile. However, there was a reasonable amount of good turning lumber still in the tree, so I made the best of it. I roughed out a cylindrical blank, coated the ends with AnchorSeal and stored it in my shed until a couple of months ago, when I turned the mallet.

When harvesting green wood for bowls I always try to make sure to reserve a few chunks that could be turned into tool handles, mallets, gavels and even smaller pieces like box and ornament finials. Every time I harvest turning wood I see more and more finished pieces and fewer offcuts. Maybe I'm just addicted to turning!

Thanks for you kind comments about the natural edge bowl. It came from the same tree as the mallet head. I cut a round bowl blank, sealed it with AnchorSeal and let it air dry in my shed until March of last year, when I finished it. The wood wasn't quite at the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) point yet, so it did move a small amount after I turned it. A small amount of additional "Mother Nature Forming" as the piece reaches EMC usually adds an extra bit of character to a natural edge piece.

I'm still trying learn how to dry wood. I have had good success with the rough turn -> brown bag for a couple of weeks -> air dry for at least 3 months technique. This has worked well for me with maple, walnut, cherry, pear, sycamore and a few other species. However, It didn't work well with a piece of willow oak that I recently cored. Some of my turning buds suggested that this wood probably needs to be sealed after it is rough turned. The rest of the process will probably be OK. I'll let you know in about 6 months if the adjusted process worked.

I have had some success using a microwave drying technique. If done VERY carefully it can produce some reasonably dry blanks. Size limitations and obvious safety concerns have caused me to focus more on the time-tested technique that I mapped out above. I also have dabbled with the liquid detergent bath system. The bowls all end up smelling like detergent. I used a large plastic garbage can to hold the detergent bath. After I stopped using the technique I had to find a way to dispose of many gallons of now gooey detergent. We have a septic system and a lot that is inside of a protected tidal wetland. It can't be flushed. I still have the can in my basement and don't know what to do with it!

Over the last few years I've built up a reasonably-sized rotating inventory of roughed out bowls and other assorted blanks in various stages of drying. This has alleviated the need to find "creative" techiques to rush the drying process.

I hope this information is of some value to you...

Good luck with your pear tree!

Best Regards,
-Allen
 
Yes Allen, that was of great help and thank you.

I just finished sorting out firewood from what I want to keep from that pile but all I did was seal the ends of the (approx) 16" long pieces and piled them up outside in a shady area for slow drying.
But after reading your response above, I am wondering if I should be cutting them up into smaller pieces like would be used for blanks and sealing them like that rather than keep them in log form. I am a little concerned about them possibly going badly spalted before drying the way I have done it. I dont mind some spalting but I would hate to see them go punky.

BTW. The same guy that let me cut down those pear trees yesterday , drove into my place while I was chainsawing up the pearwood this afternoon and he had some nice limbs of damson(prune) plum wood in his pickup. There are some nice round ones about 3 to 4" diameter and solid all the way through. I think they would make some nice candlsticks. What would you suggest doing with them. I know hollow things like bowls should be turned to about 10% of final and then finish turned when dry.
I am wondering how solid pieces like candlesticks would behave if rough turned green and then given the alcohol or some other method of drying or should they just be left in their green state as is with only the ends sealed until they are dry before I turn them.
Gosh ... it could take a year or two for them to get that dry. At my age I don't even buy green bananas any more. 😀

I am sure open for suggestions on what I should be doing with this pear and plum wood.
W.Y.
 
Howdy William,

My shed contains end-grain sealed logs that have been air drying for almost 4 years. They appear to be in pretty good shape. I have chosen to keep my raw turning stock in a shed. This keeps them out of the weather and away from most of the nasty bugs that like to feast on our turning lumber. As long as the logs are cut at least 4 or 5 inches longer on each end than the piece that you want to eventually turn you should be OK. No matter what we do, the logs will split and decay if you leave them in the natural state long enough. Also if you automatically rough out everything from day 1 you might find that one day your tastes/interests have changed and a bowl blank would have been better off as a set of candlestick blanks.

Candlesticks sound like a good turning opportunity for the plum tree. The alcohol drying technique isn't something that I'm interested in at this time. I'm sure that there are plenty of spindle turners who could advise you on some appropriate drying techniques for spindle stock.

As far as the green bananas are concerned, ...oops..., forgot my train of thought! 🙂

Best Regards,
-Allen
 
Hi William,

For the limb stock, I have had some success turning natural edge goblets with crabapple, maple, ash, apple. Brian Clifford's site got me started. Microwave drying has worked well for me on these pieces. Keep the CA handy for filling cracks in the stem as you get near the pith.

Graeme
 
Thanks Graeme;
On the CA use .. .. .. do you just seal the cracks with the CA and leave it clear or do you mix it with sawdust and pack it into the cracks.
Also do you use thin or thick CA and accellerator ? ? I have those products because I use them for making a lot of pens.
W.Y.
 
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