How is hackberry to turn?

[Jon Nuckles]

On my way home from my shop today, I saw a tree down in a park. I stopped and grabbed a twig for a leafsnap ID. If the app worked, the tree is a hackberry. Is it worth going back with my chainsaw to grab some? I have a tree guy who supplies me with wood from time to time, so I'd only bother with this if it is decent. What do you think? I'll include a photo of a leaf, in case my id is wrong. It also has little green berries that look like the hackberries in pictures online.
230229

Never mind, I did a search and it looks worthwhile. Should have searched before posting!

[Thomas Canfield]

Jon,
If you look, there are some posts about spalting the Hackberry. The wood is pretty plain without the spalting, but that will add some grey streaking and more interesting pattern. The spalting will occur naturally, but you can green turn and then seal in bag with some of the bark shavings and spalting will take place. You do have to open and reverse the bag every couple of days to allow the moisture to escape, but drying will happen fairly fast. The wet wood tends to be a little stringy and subject to tear out unless your tools are real sharp. When dry, you can cut a pretty good surface and sanding goes well. Oil finishes will tend to give a yellow caste to wood and therefore often a water base or lacquer are used. Good Luck.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I like turning hackberry. If it is plain you can have fun with dyes.

[Baxter Smith]

I have only turned one piece. It turned ok but nothing special. The spalted hackberry I have seen posted though can be stunning! If you have a place to spalt some, I would grab as much as I could get!:)

[Dan Hintz]

If it's a public park, I'd be real careful about dragging a chainsaw in and cutting away... the authorities may not take too kindly to such acts, being government land and such.

[Jon Nuckles]

Thanks for the replies. I did haul away 6 big bowl blanks, which is as much as I could fit in my suv with my wife and dog along. Lots of interested and helpful passersby, but no authorities. My shop is in a neighborhood with a bit of a crime problem, so the police may have been otherwise occupied. I don't have an outdoor spot to spalt the blanks, but I may try bagging the roughouts as Thomas suggested. The pics of spalted pieces I found when I searched for hackberry threads were stunning.

[Thomas Canfield]

Jon,

I changed the bags on some in my shop this morning that have been going for about 3-4 weeks. Some had a fairly good coverage of mold and the shavings were getting dry so I just left them out to air dry to final. I have 3 or 4 bowls about 8"D in a plastic grocery bag, and a 12" larger piece in a single bag. You should combine as many as possible in a bag just to keep the bulk down, and just add enough shavings to pad the bottom and give about 1" cover for your rough turnings. Put some shavings between stacked bowls. The bark shavings seems to really get the spalting going and no other supplement is needed. I have also done similar with some soft maple from neighbors tree and it seems to be having some spalt or other streaking forming in otherwise dull white wood.

[Jon Nuckles]

Thanks for the tips and, since no pictures means it didn't happen, here is the evidence. The only thing in the picture for scale is my 5 gallon bucket of anchorseal. The pith was off center, so I only took the bigger halves and left the pith in the smaller.