How many Pen blanks out of a 150 year old White Ash Tree?

[Clarence Martinn]

Anyone got a rough estimate on how many Pen blanks you might get from a 150 year old White Ash tree ?

[Lee Schierer]

Let' see...If a pen blank requires .04 board feet of lumber and the log is 16 feet long and 24 inches in diameter at the small end then there are about 425 board feet (https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/how-much-lumber-is-in-a-log/). This would yield about 11,350 pen blanks.

Pen blank calculated was 1 x 1 x6 inches

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Hmmm. Is that for a slimline (uses 2 pieces of wood)? If only 1 piece is required that could be 22,700 pens. Too early for me to calculate the BF of a pen blank.

[John Keeton]

You guys need another hobby!! Too much time on your hands.

[Brian Tymchak]

Lee, did you account for blade kerf? ;)

[Jamie Buxton]

This is a trick question, right? The answer is zero, because nobody would actually turn an entire big tree like that into pen blanks.

[Earl McLain]

Out of about 400 pens made, 2 have been from common ash. Both for baseball players. At pen blank size, it’s a very uninspired wood. Burls…yes. Swamp ash…yes. Trunks & limbs…I’ll Honduran Rosewood Burl or Blonde Coolibah instead. Those Southern Hemisphere folks grow beautiful pen woods!
earl

[Clarence Martinn]

But, there are 8 large Burls in that Ash Tree !!!:cool:

[Reed Gray]

In my years of selling bowls, the ones that went the fastest were ones from an old ash tree. It had a large center/heart that was the olive ash color, a very nice warm brown color with swirls. Couldn't keep them on the shelf... There could probably be a thousand or more pen blanks in off cuts...

robo hippy

[Richard Coers]

More than you could ever use and absolutely more than you could sell. Solid wood pen blanks are basically a dead commodity. If there isn't resin on the blank, no one wants it. Unless you are talking about black ash burl, then you have a good commodity.

[Randall J Cox]

You guys need another hobby!! Too much time on your hands.


ha ha ha yup....