Turning Willow

[Jay Fluegel]

Everyday for the past 20 years I have driven past a huge willow tree that is just packed with burl. The 48" diameter trunk is covered with burl almost completely and the branches are similarly covered. Yesterday much to my surprise the homeowner "pruned" 50% of the tree cutting off several large branches that have good areas of burl on them. I stopped and talked to him and asked if I could have some of it. He said I could help myself to whatever was laying on the ground so I told him I would return later this week with my truck and collect some of it.

Knowing that willow is a very soft wood will it be okay to turn? Has anyone ever seen willow burl before? Does it have the great character as the more well known, maple burl or cherry burls? I am for sure going to get some of it just to see what it looks like but would to love to hear from someone that may have experience with this wood.

 

[hockenbery]

Willow is soft and stringy. The fibers pull easily. However if you have sharp tools and bevel riding cuts it will yield a nice surface.
For bowls Pull cuts on the outside and shear cuts on the inside will work best

Willow is not for novices. It won't take you long to see if your technique is up to the task

Using a round nose scraper inside a bowl will likely pull long fiber out.

Have fun
Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

It might serve as a learning aid to hone your turning skills. As Al says, it isn't for a beginner. I feel like I am past the beginner stage, but I still don't like it.

 

[hockenbery]

It might serve as a learning aid to hone your turning skills. As Al says, it isn't for a beginner. I feel like I am past the beginner stage, but I still don't like it.

I don't like it either because it is usually sort of blah in appearance.

However a nice burl is most likely worth turning.

Al

 

[Mike Brazeau]

One of guild members and probably ranked in top couple of turners, unfortunately now departed, absolutely loved turning willow burl. He made some beautiful hollow forms.

 

[Douglas Ladendorf]

We lost a big willow a couple years ago and I have a couple logs. It seemed so soft that I wondered if it would be worth bothering. For us it would be sentimental to have something otherwise I probably would have made fire wood of it. The thing that most stuck with me is how much it stinks. Doug

 

[Bill Boehme]

... The thing that most stuck with me is how much it stinks. Doug

It certainly does. Cottonwood doesn't smell much better.

 

[Dean Center]

I am working on a theory about willow. There are lines of old willows on ranch homesteads here in the Rockies and it is reputed to turn nicely. I turned some very attractive pieces from a branch of local willow a few years ago and was surprised at the lack of fuzz and stringiness. That tree was not a weeping willow, and the new branches are green in color, rather than the yellow color of white willow and it's sport, the weeping willow. My theory is that different varieties of willow may have different turning properties. At least out here in the arid West, willow can be a nice wood to turn.

Anybody have any thoughts? Rob W.?

 

[John Tisdale]

Willow burl - don't pass it up

I've turned one willow log and it yielded a spectacular piece - but it comes with a price.

Refer to: www.americanfineart.com - it's the top one to my right.

The log was fresh-cut and dripping wet - took three guys to lift it into my little truck - probably 350-lbs. I chainsawed in into what I call a lathe-ready blank - when you think about it that's where the "big" decisions are made. Because the trunk of the tree was probably 6' in diameter, there was no pith as I remember.

Rough turning was as per previous comments - the stuff is soft and stinky, especially when wet. At this stage it's more "git'r done" rather that surface quality - I brought it to shape, hollowed it out and let it sit in a dehumidified room for 8-months with a computer-fan evacuating 24/7.

After resurfacing the tenon on the Kelton mandrel, it went back on the lathe and, holy moly, was it warped. While some of the end-grain areas were unaffected (as you would expect), the side-grain and especially the burl areas were extreme. The rough had been a bit over 22" diameter when it went into drying - I lost an easy 2" with shrinkage. So the moral of the story of black-willow burl is: hold your nose when roughing and leave it thick enough to accommodate extreme shrinkage, especially where the burl rays shoot out.

The second moral is: take a fresh look at your finished product - it may have some attributes you didn't see when laboring on it. At the piece's first showing a gallery-goer remarked: "Hey, looks like the Sistene Chapel" - as you notice looking at the piece, there are two bark inclusions on the top that seem to be "reaching out to each other". Had I noticed the price would have gone up.

As a general comment, we all enjoy nice cutting, non-tearing, not tool-dulling, nice this, non-that woods. But that's not the objective - it's the finished product. We all work with an inherently beautiful medium - any tree, any species, any log in the right hands can be an object of beauty. So perhaps the real objective is to hone our skills and our sensitivities (ability to see or foresee beauty), practice the skills we have and share those skills with others.

John

 

[John Spitters]

This piece was turned from a section of the main trunk, no figuring was evident from the outside of the log.
Willow can be a spectacular wood but a bit of a challenge to turn, let alone cut with a chainsaw because of the stringy wood fibers.