Bowls from pine?

[brian zawatsky]

I live near a reservoir, and recently the water company felled a monster Eastern White Pine. I'm talking like a 36" diameter trunk here. I normally have an extreme aversion to soft, resinous pine, but I find myself drawn to this tree just by virtue of its sheer size and age.

Anyone ever turn large bowls/platters from white pine?

[david privett]

I just turned a platter from a short leaf pine , it was about 14 inches , the pine was standing dead for a year then placed on blocks to keep it off the ground of a year. I cut it on the sawmill for lumber and saved the butt for turning. It had some weird blotches of red in it and some dark gray streaks and the normal pine colorings. Surprisingly it was still kinda wet and it cracked in one place but some filler and it came out very well as being unique in character. I give it to the girl who stiches up where a skin cancer was taken off . She I guess had no one give her anything she was kinda speechless for a while and then said she had been looking for a accent piece and it was what she wanted.(either she was just being nice.) So anyway sharp tools and some sanding pine will make your shop smell nice, and you can get something out of it. But I would let it dry some if it is that green.

[mike ash]

I have turned a number of bowls from Ponderosa pine. My strategy is to turn when wet with the wall thickness being 10% of the diameter, making sure to round off the corners before storing and let them dry in a cool environment for about a year, then do final turning. "I've had virtually no cracking with this process. These bowls are about 14" dia and vase is about 10"x8".

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[brian zawatsky]

Those are absolutely beautiful Mike. Thanks for sharing the pics. I'm definitely going to take my chainsaw over there at first opportunity

[Roger Chandler]

White pine is notorious for lots of sticky resin, and sometimes has those pitch pockets hidden in the grain of the tree. I have 16 remaining on our property and have taken down 6 already. You certainly can turn it, but be prepared to have your clothes, your equipment, etc covered in pine resin, and make sure you have enough solvent on hand to clean up your lathe & tools afterward. Pine can make some great looking bowls if you get the limb sockets/knots lined up symmetrically in the bowl. Many dip in oil solutions to make it translucent, which only enhances the look.

Good luck with your projects!

[robert baccus]

Roger that Roger. Several of the White pines, firs and spruces have one spiral of branches per growth year. This with very white wood makes a pattern just like Norfolk pine. Hard pines like Southern pines and Ponderosa are not the same. On the resin problem just age the blocks under a tarp for a year or two and the resin problem goes away and maybe gain some nice spalting like Mike's bowls--which are really first class.

[mike ash]

Thanks for the comment Robert.

The coloring in the bowls is called blue stain fungus, Grosmannia clavigera, and is a species of sac fungus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascomycota). It spreads to lodgepole pine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodgepole_pine), ponderosa pine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponderosa_pine), Douglas-fir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas-fir), and whitebark pine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodgepole_Pine) trees from the body and a special structure in the heads of mountain pine beetles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle). I worked in a lumber mill pulling chain while I was going to school and the pine lumber that came thru with blue stain was considered of lesser quality and sold pretty cheap. Now days, woodworkers value the coloring and have driven up the prices.

[robert baccus]

You are quite right mike. I am a retired forester and the company I spent 30 years with burned or chipped bluestained lumber the whole time. Meanwhile local builders bought bluestained spruce/fir/pine from Colorade--go figure. If you want to see the Rockies with green trees you better hurry now. We thought we had bettle problems here in the south but the US rockies and Canadian Rockies are almost devoid of green trees due to the bark beetles. Blue stain wood is free if you go there in the next 50 years or so. I live in E. Texas.