Box Elder bowl...

[Michael Stafford]

Here is a Box Elder bowl about 11 1/2" in diameter and 3 1/4" tall with a fairly consistent wall thickness of 5/16". I was sent the wood by Dennis Peacock and Mark Cothren as a contribution to my learning experience with green wood turning and alcohol drying.

I had never turned Box Elder except as pen blanks. It turned like butter, was a little prone to end grain tear out but finished like glass.

Thanks friends, I appreciate your generosity. :D

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Mike,

The bowl looks great! Good on Dennis and Mark for donating the wood to you. This really is a great forum.

[Glenn Hodges]

Mike, good curve and rim which go together to make a beautiful bowl. Those guys keep the scarlett red to themselves? You really can't tell about box elder, sometimes the red appears, and sometimes not.

[John Hart]

Pretty nice Mike! I like the edge...It's a good look. So...this is the wood that Carole just stole from someone...hmmm..I think she should share!;)

You do nice work Mike...Whats the finish?

[Gary Max]

Great looking bowl Mike---makes me want a box of Cereal and a quart of milk.
Missed lunch today ---got food on the mind.

[Carole Valentine]

Pretty bowl, Mike and a great finishing job!
John, some pieces of wood are just not sharable! If Box Elder gets separated from the other pieces of the log it came from, it goes into a lonely depression and gets real pale and wan looking. :rolleyes: (I did send a piece of BE as a surprise to a guy that sent me a package of nice wood a few weeks ago...but it will probably be ghostly pale by the time he gets it! LOL)

[John Hart]

Ohhhhh...Yeah...We don't want it to get lonely. Sheesh...I must have "stupid" written all over my face!:D

Seriously...I'm dying to see what you do with it. After seeing Mike's bowl, I'm going down to the sawmill and hunt.

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Hey, Mike, that is a little bigger than most of your boxes, but it is really nice. I wonder what the growing range of box elder is. I don' think I have ever seen any around here.

[Anthony Yakonick]

Sorry, I don't think it's Boxelder

[Michael Stafford]

Don,
I don't know anything about box elder except what I have seen on the various wood working sites. This was my first piece of box elder except for pen blanks. Maybe someone with some forestry knowledge can fill us in about its growing range. Yeah, this is a lot bigger than I usually turn. Some of my internet friends have been coercing me into more and more green wood turning. :)

Anthony,
I cannot say as I have no previous experience turning box elder. I will rely on what my friends said as to species of wood.

John,
Sorry to be so long in responding to your finish question. I use a home brew of equal parts BLO, tung oil and varnish thinned with 2 parts mineral spirits. Flood it on, let it soak in and friction polish it with the lathe running with cheesecloth and non-abrasive pads. Repeat until I am happy with the finish. Buff with the Beall and call it finished.

Thanks all for the positive comments! :)

[Ernie Nyvall]

Beautiful bowl Mike. I like that form, the lip especially.

Ernie

[Carole Valentine]

Just wondering why you think it is not? Not all Box Elder has the red streaks.

[Anthony Yakonick]

Just wondering why you think it is not? Not all Box Elder has the red streaks.
I understand that not all boxelder has red in it, but the color, grain and the pith look to be a different type of maple. Boxelder without color tends to be creamy white with very little grain contrast.


Nice bowl btw

[John Hart]

I just spent some time looking at this...It's my guess that the red comes from the Box Elder Bug that spends it's life in love with the female of that tree species. Sorta like the Ambrosia Beetle is to Ambrosia Maple. That's my thought anyway. Doesn't mean it's correct of course.:rolleyes:

[Anthony Yakonick]

I just spent some time looking at this...It's my guess that the red comes from the Box Elder Bug that spends it's life in love with the female of that tree species. Sorta like the Ambrosia Beetle is to Ambrosia Maple. That's my thought anyway. Doesn't mean it's correct of course.:rolleyes:

Same insect in all maples, columbian timber beetle. "Ambrosia Beetle" is a generic term for many boring insects.

[John Hart]

Just for a research project, I decided to take a look at these bugs. It does appear that the Ambrosia beetle comes in different varieties and are a boring insect that likes to attack a wide variety of trees. It appears to be mostly black. A guy at Woodcraft explained to me that the boring holes and magnificent stains on Ambrosia Maple were the result of the Ambrosia Beetle and it's poop.

I couldn't find any reference to the BoxElder Beetle making Red stains in trees, but that the Beetle will breed on Female Box Elder trees and also that they will leave red poop stains on your drapes if they get in the house.

Below is two pictures of each...First, the Ambrosia...then the Boxelder.

[Anthony Yakonick]

John, you have a PM

Anthony

[John Hart]

All right...I think I've got it. Anthony was kind enough to provide me with a link to bugs, which led me to a dozen other sources, so I was able to dig a bit deeper on this and I think I figured out what we should be thinking. First off, the red stains in Box Elder wood come from a fungus that enters the tree by way of insect holes or splits. The Box Elder bug does not cause damage to the tree...they just prefer that particular tree as a breeding ground so thats why they get the name....I guess thats the etymology of the entomology.;)

Anyway...The so-called Ambrosia beetle is basically the same thing as the Columbian Timber Beetle, which is a boring insect and will attack most any kind of tree. They are particularly fond of conifers. Soooo, since the red stain in a Box Elder is due to the infiltration of fungus by way of damage to the tree, you will find the narrow streaks at bug boring holes, caused by the Columbia Timber beetle, giving the effect that Mike's bowl has. In the case of Carole's magnificant slab-o-wood, it was probably damaged more significantly, creating a wider distribution of the stain.

This would explain the inconsistency in stain (or the absence of stain) from Box Elder to Box Elder.

I think that's it.

[Anthony Yakonick]

John, thanks for checking that out a few years ago I was doing research on the subject and found that site. A few other things, I have been turning and selling for about 11 years and have turned 900+ vessels and about 1000 other items mostly in boxelder, silver maple and red maple that has been cut through out the year and have never seen one of those insects.
Second, west coast BE does not usually have the streaks as the insects have not made it out there yet

east coast boxelder
http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14535

Third, I mean not to rain on anybodys parade but I try to provide some information when possible, I can identify about six types of wood and boxelder is one of them, I will include a photo showing why I said I didn't think it was BE. Thanks all, nice work Mike
Anthony

[John Hart]

I think this study http://www.plpa.agri.umn.edu/~robertb/pdfreprints/redstain.pdf conducted by the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota pretty much wraps up the questions we have. These folks were serious about finding the nature of the red stain in Box Elder, and they are leery of the fungal theory. They conducted a number of controlled experiments and made very concise observations...more than I would be willing to do. At any rate, I think the bottom line indicates that the pattern of stain can vary widely, depending on the extent and type of damage the tree has sustained during it's life.

It sure is pretty wood!

[Anthony Yakonick]

John, thanks for the new info and link.