Thread: Cape Lilac / White Cedar

It's gorgeous looking wood and easy to work.
I turned a largish puck our of a piece of Cape Lilac street tree that was taken down by the council a few years ago as all the street trees were all getting old and splitting and falling over or dropping branches on parked cars. There was a particularly large tree on our neighbours verge and I was hoping to get a pice of trunk out of it but even though its trunk was about 600mm in diameter it was just a hollow shell. I got a couple of solid branches out of it and made a puck for a cricket bat display case. The cricket bat was signed by the Pakistani and Aussie teams that played at the annual Lilac Hill cricket match in the outer Perth suburbs some time in the 1990's. The case was made as a paid job for a friends, but the recipient did not get the connection between the puck and the ground where the match was played.

casef.jpg baseandtop.jpg

Love the stuff, just dont get much of it. I echo BobL's thoughts on it.

I agree with BobL & Hughie, a very under rated timber imho. Though the properties of the wood in a particular tree can be quite variable due to the wide range of environments and growing conditions that specimens survive in. Both in log form and cut it seems to deteriorate quite fast if poorly stored / managed.

You have a particularly nice sample with good grain differentiation. Probably due to the tough(er) conditions in the Kalgoorlie / Boulder region???.

When it splits... and it will, fill the cracks with resin and colour the resin to give the WOW factor.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

I agree with BobL & Hughie, a very under rated timber imho. Though the properties of the wood in a particular tree can be quite variable due to the wide range of environments and growing conditions that specimens survive in. Both in log form and cut it seems to deteriorate quite fast if poorly stored / managed.

You have a particularly nice sample with good grain differentiation. Probably due to the tough(er) conditions in the Kalgoorlie / Boulder region???.

We have two of these trees in the back yard and they are quite common around the neighbourhood. I've been meaning to cut off a branch or two for ages, just to see what the wood was like. Have now got a large pile of cut logs against the fence - was thinking of cutting the larger logs down the centre to hopefully get some decent bowl blanks and"wet" turn them to shape to hopefully prevent splitting. I'm going to turn the smaller stuff to cylindrical blanks for pepper grinders, and maybe even bore the centres out - hopefully this might stop them from splitting too much. I have now made / finished two pepper grinders - they're sitting on the bench out in the shed and will probably stay there for a while to see if they split or do anything else nasty.

From my observations when cutting down with the chainsaw, all of the timber has some pretty pronounced growth rings and strong grain - I'm looking forward to seeing what some of the forks look like inside.

Here is a cape lilac item I'm working on. And my stash of CL is in the background.

Originally Posted by rod1949

Here is a cape lilac item I'm working on. And my stash of CL is in the background.

Very nice. Love the matched grain / resin on the top and side panel. Would love to see the finished product.