Thread: Busy Gathering

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen

I have been very busy on the milling and gathering front.

Firstly, due to a development in Rockingham, the owner of this house offered us any timber from this large Carob and a couple of Jap peppers and a coral tree. I took the day off, and once the tree loppers had it all on the ground, I flashed up the mighty 660 with the 24 inch bar and had my way with it. We took about 15 trailer loads of carob, mostly for individuals, but we got a lot for the club over a couple of days.

The Carob has lovely pinks and reds through the heart, I expect it will have similar turning properties to Camphor Laurel. We got a lot of very blanks from the carob. I kept 8 big blanks for myself, will turn a large platter or bowl for the owners in a couple of years time.

The Jap pepper seems very dense, with lovely greens and swirls through the heart. Not a lot of size to the pepper and possibly a trailer full in total.

The Coral tree. What a nasty tree, full of spines and very course fibres, like a palm tree. I took a couple of slabs to see what I could do with it, but I expect I will be ditching them in a couple of years time.

Ironically, the wife is a volunteer at the Perth Zoo, she happened to mention in passing that they are dropping a large Carob, the botanists got all excited and asked for all the foliage, it is fed to many of the zoo animals who go crazy for it, including Giraffes who will eat the leaves and the bark and stems up to 30mm dia!!!!! Certainly better than going to Landfill. The botanists took three trips to take most of the foliage, on one trip, they back filled and supplied me with 1/2 trailer load of Australian Red Cedar. Not a timber I have seen in WA before. Wow, stunning colour, but very soft, got plans to carve a Moai from the cedar. I will turn some pens for the botanists as a Thank you.

Lastly, on a very large property we visit often for shooting, motorbikes, camping etc has a huge Burl infested Wandoo tree which has been on the ground for years. Each trip, I continue to remove a few slabs off the burls. The Wandoo is INCREDIBLY hard, dense and kills the blades. I get one slab per sharpening, and two slabs per tank full, on the 660 with the 36 inch bar. Despite the 36 inch bar, I may need to attack the burl from both side due to it's size. The grain is superb and worth persevering with. It is like chainsawing concrete. A slab or two pays for fuel and incidentals for the weekend. In another 3 or 4 trips, I should have it all, gotta be a couple of tons of burl on the one tree.

Once the Wandoo is done, I found a stand of York Gum Burls and a York gum tree which looks as though it has blown down a few months ago. It appears to be very curly, I mean super curly. A Marri is also down and looks to curly as well, the farmer said 'Help Yourself', I look after that farmer.


Lastly, we gained acces to 3,000 Olive trees which had been bulldozed. I originally turned up my nose to the olive, but after seeing some stunning naturl edge vases, rolling pins, and chisel handles, I then decided I would have room for some Olive, it is stunning, dense and dries well if looked after.

Well, that is quite a lot of timber. I have milled and sealed all mine, but as you can imagine, my wood turning club had tons of the stuff dumped at the club (Wandi). We had a busy bee Saturday just gone and milled and sealed the lot, the wood store is now looking very healthy and full
Anyhoo, enough typing, thanks for looking

Willy
Jarrahland