Olive wood

**Tonyz** · 6th July 2022, 06:25 PM

just been offered some fresh olive trees. Poor bugga has been growing an orchard of them for 29 years, supplying local markets, hotels, oil processors etc and now he upset someone in council they got the gov heavies and he has been forced to rip them all out.
"seeds may be eaten by birds and germinated elsewhere. F**k me we have more kerosene & tea tree bush around town than anywhere else in Aus and they come up with this crap.

Anyway rant over (for today) braches are 50-150mm thick, big fat root balls that will need a lot of dirt & stone removed first but how do I store this and anything else I should know. Thinking of tall vases and bowls etc.

**hughie** · 6th July 2022, 06:46 PM

Clean the root ball with high pressure water if you trim them back seal the cut areas then the usual store in cool place . The branches are more of a challenge as most wont be worth removing the pith so just seal the ends also keep a few of the small branches 15-30mm dia put them away to dry as well. Down the track you may find the larger branches will open around the pith. If so then you can use the smaller branches to fill in the pith area when turning.

**BobL** · 6th July 2022, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by hughie

. . . . . . .Down the track you may find the larger branches will open around the pith. If so then you can use the smaller branches to fill in the pith area when turning.

Agree - but occasionally you can get lucky.
This one was turned from a branch ~2years ago.
I deliberately turned it off centre to get the pith over to one side so its not centred on the handle
MAllet1.jpg

MAllet3.jpg
The offcuts make really nice kitchen implements
IMG_6242.jpg

**NeilS** · 7th July 2022, 04:02 PM

My experience of pre-turning it green into bowl blanks wasn't very successful and I had a high failure rate.

Recommend you rip down centre into half billets, asap. I found it needed a lot more nursing along to get it to season without cracking, compared to something like Blackwood. But, nice figure on any that got all the way through.

**Pat** · 7th July 2022, 05:09 PM

Yes please!

As above, it's great to turn, difficult to dry without cracking and very desirable timber to turn.

Yes I know I repeated myself, it's that good!

Here's a Olive Root Burl Bowl I completed a couple of months ago.

Olive Burl Bowl Blank 04.jpg Olive Burl Bowl Blank 03.jpg

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