non-flame box elder

[tdrice]

I am looking for non flame Box Elder for hollow forms. The sellers I have found only have flame and thin or smaller pieces. I am wanting sizes from 3 x3x 8 to 8 x 8 x20. Does anyone know of a good supplier?

Thanks, Terence

 

[Mike Johnson]

On special requests like that I usually go to the guys with portable sawmills that cut various species of trees. If you give them a list of wood blanks that you want they will put it on the list of blanks to be cut and select the proper sized logs to provide the dimension of wood blanks you need. This can take a few weeks as they are usually processing various orders and different species trees on a daily basis. For the larger billets it seems like a lot of work but finding and cutting your own logs was my best source for the larger dimension wood blanks.
A tree cutting service is another option for sourcing specific species of logs if you have the time to wait for the tree to be felled and transport a few cut logs home to process with a chainsaw. The larger billets are the hardest to source as you usually need a larger tree trunk to harvest from and many large logs are processed into thick slabs for table tops and bar tops.

 

[Damon McLaughlin]

I am looking for non flame Box Elder for hollow forms. The sellers I have found only have flame and thin or smaller pieces. I am wanting sizes from 3 x3x 8 to 8 x 8 x20. Does anyone know of a good supplier?

Thanks, Terence

Terance, I will be driving to California this week and have plans on staying at the Red Lion in Coos Bay Wednesday night. I'll see if I can find a couple pieces of plain box elder to bring for you but they more than likely have some moisture to them. I feel really bad about not seeing your yesterday as I gave away about a dozen huge plain box elder rounds.

 

[john lucas]

Terence I would look at Bradford pear. Sometimes Box Elder can be a bear to cut clean which requires more sanding. Bradford pear on the other hand cuts so clean you hardly have to sand it. Mike Gibson who posts on this forum uses it for most of his hollow vessels with spectacular results.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I would love to find some Bradford pear around here, but it has, excuse the pun, "fallen" out of favor as a landscape tree in this area. Strong winds and Bradford pear trees just don't get along very well.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Bill come to MS and we will fix you up. I have a 3 foot log in the shop now.

 

[Damon McLaughlin]

Sorry Terence, I took a quick look in my wood shed and unfortunately I don't have any plain box elder left to bring down.

 

[Bill Boehme]

You could always turn FBE and then sit it in the sun for a few days.

 

[tdrice]

Thanks to all of you. I have some special pieces in mind for which I believe Box Elder would be the perfect wood. Besides, Bhin Pho used a great of it and if it was good enough for him it is sure good enough for me. The old family farm had 30 to 40 Box Elder trees but my brother bulldozed them before I even started turning. I can't really blame him; the Box Elder bugs were EVERYWHERE!!!

Terence

 

[John Jordan]

Big leaf maple would be as good for turning stuff like Binh's. Similar texture and stability.

John