juniper

[alex carey]

Has anyone ever turned the wood Juniper. The wood is from Carson City Nevada. I am going up there for thanksgiving and I've been told there is a program where you go cut down you own wood to help stop forest fire. I have no idea if this wood is any good. If it is then Ill drive up there with a trailer and get a ton of it.

I have turned once piece of something that was given to me, they said it was Juniper but I am unsure since there are probably like 100 species of it. It was awesome by the way, and it smelt great.

this is the site I got the info from.
http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/carson_city_field/blm_programs/more_-_other_management/timber.html


Any ideas

Alex

[Curt Fuller]

I've turned some of this western great basin type Juniper. I think there are a couple varieties. The trees don't get very large growing in the desert conditions but they have some beautiful wood. It's soft like most of the evergreens and very sticky when fresh cut. But it has some very nice color, more of a caramel color than the red cedar that grows in the east. Here are a couple old old pics that show the color.

[alex carey]

if it turns out with that grain I will be pleased but here is the piece I had, its quite small, but it was a pleasure to turn and it smells great.

Alex

[Tom Lewis]

There are different kinds of juniper, but it is one of my favorite wood to turn. I will try to post a picture.

[Tom Lewis]

The top piece is cedar, the lower left juniper, and the lower right osage orange.

[Tom Wilson66]

Alex, the picture you showed looks an awful lot like eastern red cedar, which is a member of the juniper family. I have turned eastern cedar, and it is a very soft wood, smells great and sands and finishes very well. You will need to keep your tools extra sharp to get the best results. In time, the color fades to a deeper, more brownish color. Keep the dust in a bag in your clothes closet to make everything smell fresher.

[alex carey]

Yes it smells great, I kept a jar full of this stuff and before I turn I take a whiff of it.

[ron hossack]

Has anyone ever turned the wood Juniper. The wood is from Carson City Nevada.
I suspect that the wood is probably Rocky Mountain Juniper.

Very nice to work with and smells like cedar when turning.

Here is a pic of some fly rod handles a friend in Helena, MT made with this wood.

http://www.Photoshed.net/usr/464/306IMG_0783.JPG


Here is a pic showing the different coloration of the wood.

http://www.Photoshed.net/usr/464/juniper.jpg

[Wally Wenzel]

aAlex, these are made from apiece of juniper that came from Silver City NM.
100622

[alex carey]

so far juniper looks like a winner. I emailed some turners up in the carson city neveda area, and they all said the best wood up there is mountain mahogany. Ever heard of it?

Alex

[curtis rosche]

there was a post a while back about mountain mahogany, they were lettin gpeople go in and cut some stands down. from that post this is what i gathered, its fun to turn when wet, a pain to turn when dry because it is like stone, but it looks really nice

[Paul Engle]

Alex, the western juniper in No NV, SW Idaho ( Owyhee county) is very colorful, I logged it for years for fence posts and fire wood from BLM lands, It is very slow growing, a lot of the fire wood came from 500+ yr old trees, we had one ole tree by our landing the kids called rocking horse , one of the limbs was shaped as such ,it made a good baby sitter ...., lightning took out the tree my last year up there, the rings on the limb put it ( the limb ) at 250 + years while the main trunk had over 800 rings.The tree/limb averaged 40-45 rings per inch. I was constantly in awe of these trees .You may be getting into some wood from King Arthers time .....Just watch out for stones captured in the bark.

[alex carey]

that is excellent advice Paul, I never even thought about that. Hitting a rock with a chains saw would give a serious kick, once of which I probably wouldn't be expecting. All the more reason to go slow and be careful.

Thanks, you might have just saved a limb.

Alex

[Bernie Weishapl]

I believe it was robo hippy (aka Reed Gray) that got the mountain mahogany. He may chime in here or you could PM him.