Willow any good?

[greenacres2]

Neighbor lost a big part of a willow tree last night. Is the wood worth harvesting for anything besides bent-twig kind of stuff? I'll end up helping him clean up anyway...just wondering if i should keep any?

Thanks,
earl

[gerti]

Tried to turn from a weeping willow chunk once. Very hard to do without tear-out, and the density across the year rings varied greatly. So at least for turning I'd give it a thumbs down, but that is just based on a single log and others might have a different experience.

[cabinetman]

Neighbor lost a big part of a willow tree last night. Is the wood worth harvesting for anything besides bent-twig kind of stuff? I'll end up helping him clean up anyway...just wondering if i should keep any?

Thanks,
earl

What kind of project did you have in mind for it?

.

[greenacres2]

Nothing particular in mind--maybe picture frames, boxes, and the like. Just hate to pass up "free" if it's usable!!

earl

[cabinetman]

Nothing particular in mind--maybe picture frames, boxes, and the like. Just hate to pass up "free" if it's usable!!

earl

Free is good. If you have the means to get it all milled, stickered and stored in a dry area until you're ready to use would make it worthwhile.

.

[LCHIEN]

according to Wiki,

Willow wood is also used in the manufacture of boxes, brooms, cricket bats (grown from certain strains of white willow), cradle boards, chairs and other furniture, dolls, flutes, poles, sweat lodges, toys, turnery, tool handles, veneer, wands and whistles. In addition, tannin, fibre, paper, rope and string can be produced from the wood.

I think the wood is described as pliable, soft, so its not a hard dense wood. Because the tree has a high affinity for water, I would imagine the wood is more stringy/fibrous than hard, so it's probably not a good machining wood like we like to think of as walnut, maple, oak, etc.

[cabinetman]

according to Wiki,

Willow wood is also used in the manufacture of boxes, brooms, cricket bats (grown from certain strains of white willow), cradle boards, chairs and other furniture, dolls, flutes, poles, sweat lodges, toys, turnery, tool handles, veneer, wands and whistles. In addition, tannin, fibre, paper, rope and string can be produced from the wood.

Willow does seem to be appropriate for some things (boldface above). For free, I wouldn't be dissuaded by how hard or soft the wood is. It can have many uses if you care for it and machine it with sharp tooling.

.

[greenacres2]

Thanks all. I'm working a race this weekend, back Sunday night, leaving Wednesday for a visit with LOML's parents in North Carolina. Hopefully the neighbor will not be doing any clean-up in the next week or two!!

earl

[woodturner]

Neighbor lost a big part of a willow tree last night. Is the wood worth harvesting for anything besides bent-twig kind of stuff?

Willow is available from commercial lumber suppliers. I have used it for smaller projects and marquetry. The wood is on the soft side, about the softness of Honduras Mahogany, so it works easily but also dents easily.

[cabinetman]

I have used it for smaller projects and marquetry.

Can you post some pictures?

.

[chopnhack]

Marquetry is a beautiful art, flat intarsia basically. Please post pics, I have often thought of trying my hand at it, but have never had the skill level to get good results! Have you done anything intricate?

[tommyt654]

Don't know about whether its good for furniture or anything, lots of folks here use the larger soft limber branches to make chairs out of and the bark is used to chew on to get rid of headaches

[cabinetman]

Don't know about whether its good for furniture or anything, lots of folks here use the larger soft limber branches to make chairs out of and the bark is used to chew on to get rid of headaches

Many "hardwoods" that aren't really that hard or dense are used for furniture, including chairs. Chewing on bark...I'd rather take aspirin.

.

[Joe DeFazio]

Willow has an interlocked grain pattern (along the lines of mahogany, although it doesn't look like mahogany), which makes it ideal for the bent linings and corner/end blocks of bowed stringed instruments, for which it has commonly been used for centuries.

Here is a link to some uncommon figured willow used (in a less common application) as the back and ribs (sides) of a cello:

Willow Cello

The maker is excellent and the slideshow is worth watching, imho.

I know that your willow is probably not figured, and you probably won't be making an instrument out of it, but if you look at the pictures of the back being carved, you will see that it can be carved to a fine level of detail (by a master carver, in this case). The way the ribs are bent also testifies to willow's tough interlocked grain.

[chopnhack]

Awesome pic Joe!! At first look, I took it for fiddleback maple... The author seems to have taken the wood on for challenge in making a cello or just felt that the wood would be perfect for the application... in either case you are dead on, he is a master. I feel that any woodworking that gets to the level of instrument making to be a master, same with boat builders. In my opinion, its the curves I still think in straight lines, but dream in curves... hey, thats going to be my new slogan... goodbye "....$hit, I cut the wrong end, again " and truly that hasn't happened in a long time :-)