Thread: Avacado Tree...Any use?

they are greate for woodturning i collect all the bigger stuff when we prune ours and store it away with the stockpile.

it has a light brown colour with good figure.

Not bad stuff to work at all - cops a little bit of tear-out but generally good gear.

It seems to be fairly popular for furniture making in California, and the work I've seen (in books) is stripey, quite distinctive.
Good luck!

Thanks for all the replies. Now how long does it need to dry?

prozac

Rather a soft timber - but turns quite well as Vern and Carl say. Well worth keeping - especially from a larger specimen.
I've found it tends to spalt real easy - can be quite pretty.

General rule of thumb I've heard is 1 year drying for every inch of thickness, but there are so many variables (temperature / humidity / storage method to name but a few).

Here's a couple of my very earliest turnings.

a 2" slab of avacado sould be well and truly dry in 9 months. from my expriance it drys verry quickly.

We have some avocado from Tuntable Falls which has dried very quickly with no cracking but is just plain whiteish timber. I am amazed at Cavemans spalted pieces. That might be the thing to do with it, leave it in a heap of wet mulch or a wet plastic wrap for a few months.

mine went splaterd it was lying out in the padock under the trees for about a month.

the stuff that was in teh shed was still quite nice good figure and diferent shades of brown.

Turned a fair bit of it some time back. Found that rough turning then drying time saving, but be warned it does move quite a lot during drying. One bowl about 250mm x 80mm left about 25mm thick moved so much the final bowl was about 6mm thick. I did have a frightening experience getting the sap in my eyes. Was totally blind for about two hours as a result. The finished bowl was quite a nice honey brown colour.
Jim