Alder any good?

[alex carey]

Can someone post some pictures of Alder, or at least tell me if its worth getting. My friends dad cut down a tree and is willing to drop it off at my house. Is it worth it? Is it any good?

[Ron Ainge]

Alex

I have turned Alder and it is a good wood to work with. I do a lot of Aspen and the two are not to different from each othere as I remember.
Any free wood is good wood.

[George Bregar]

All the doors in my lake home are Alder. Nice. Similar to cherry but more brown
.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Good turning wood. Would take what you can get.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Sounds like a great gloat! Looking forward to seeing photos of your wood score!

[Mark Carlson]

I'm in the finishing stage of making an alder blanket chest. I wanted to try alder after using mostly cherry and qs white oak on previous projects. Alder is not as hard as cherry and oak and machines well. I like the light brown color its taken on after putting on a couple of coats or Arm-R-Seal. I'm not expecting much color change over time as cherry but we shall see.

~mark

[Jarrod McGehee]

Alex, I don't have pics but it's a nice wood to work with and it looks good. You can stain it to look like cherry, walnut, and some other woods. It's pretty stuff

[Brian Novotny]

It acceps stains very well....not blotchy.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

My electric guitar is alder. It's certainly nice wood!

[Ryan Baker]

Alder is great stuff. Get all you can.

[Jim Underwood]

Alder is sometimes hard to tell from Cherry in a kiln dried state. It is a much softer wood, and I think it doesn't machine nearly as well. It leaves "fuzzies" where the blade runs across the grain. The good thing is that it's a very even grained wood and sands well. All in all, it's a very pretty wood.

I'd certainly take some if it was offered to be dropped of at my doorstep. I mean, geez, wood that I don't have to cut nor haul? No brainer. Take it. The worst that can happen is that you have some extra firewood! :D

[Brian Novotny]

Alders good, but let's say that after the alder I had no more room for the truckload of carob in two days (hypothetical) I don't know if I'd take the alder.......or I'd take the alder and sell a whole bunch of it at a very reasonable price....or have trades set up, or giveaways, but I wouldn't take a full dumpster of alder if it meant no walnut or carob or myrtle if it came along. I'd just take the bottom of the tree...and I'd drive to get it.

[Paul Engle]

Especally when smoking salmon/ lake trout/ halibut/ etc. on the bbq, works great on ribs and chicken and slow cooked roast beef on the rotessire .... save your chips from turning , wrap in aluminum foil ,poke a couple holes and toss on the coals at the strart and again 15 minutes before finishing... yeah man .... great stuff... Oh ...as to turning it is as sweet as it gets...:D

[Christopher Fletcher]

This isn't mine, but a simple google image search yielded a few examples:

http://woodenschu.com/images/bowls/natural/alder/curly%20alder%20burl.jpg

PS: Send me some and I'll tell you how it turns ;-)

[Joshua Dinerstein]

I have found it a little soft in the spalted pieces I have. But overall a good wood and in great demand amoung my family. The grain is pretty and it finishes up beautifully. I would definitely take the free wood.

Joshua

[Brian Novotny]

This isn't mine, but a simple google image search yielded a few examples:

http://woodenschu.com/images/bowls/natural/alder/curly%20alder%20burl.jpg

PS: Send me some and I'll tell you how it turns ;-)

I would say that your average piece of alder doesn't have that much figure.

[Mike Minto]

have to agree with brian on that - i have used alder for flat work, and while it has a nice 'common' sort of grain, i've seen nothing like the bowl posted here from the 'google search'. i just posted pics of a spice rack i made in the projects forum; the shelves are alder, though the pics don't show them off all that well. it does stain well. mike