Applewood?

[Walter Plummer]

I have only seen one piece of applewood before and I have a question for those of you that have used it. Does it all look the same? Does wood from a tree that produces Red Delicious look the same as wood from one that produces Granny Smith? Are all apples grafted to a "Applewood" tree? Yes, I could Google it, but I would rather would ask actual woodworkers.
Thanks, Walt.

[george wilson]

I haven't used enough apple to know the differences in species. I CAN tell you,though,it is pretty difficult to get apple that has a good pink color throughout. Much of the time it has heartwood or some gray discolorations(not really heartwood I guess). David Weaver would know more about it.

[Sean Hughto]

I've probably had a dozen different pieces of apple in the past few years. There has a been a great deal of difference among the chunks. I saw a great show on PBS about apples and how much difference there is among trees in the wild as far as their fruits. They are highly variable and most do not produce sweet fruit, and hence all the grafting and cloning of the best varieties. In colonial times cider was apparently a very popular alcoholic drink, and was usually made from these less than ideal apples. I'm guessing with so much variation in the fruit, it makes sense that the wood might be highly variable too. One consistent thing, it all checks like the dickens.

[george wilson]

I understand that at Carter's Grove Plantation near Williamsburg,in the 18th.C.,they grew 39 or 49 kinds of cider apples. Cider was a huge staple back then,hard or soft. When I made the cider press and the accompanying cider mill,which ground up the apples,they tried putting regular store bought apples into it. The iron teeth of the mill would just cut through those big soft apples,but not pull them down through the rollers to crush and chew them up. That was because cider apples were much smaller than common apples. They had to cut up the big apples into 1/4 pieces to get them to crush up.

Then,they took the coarse apple "meal" and wrapped it in a big,black horse hair bag,and squeezed it in the huge press. The horse hair material looked just like that woven nylon they used in cheap replacement seat covers back in the 1950's.Looked like woven nylon fishing line.

Cider was so important that everyone kept a big cask of it in their basements,which were accessed through the angled doors so things could be loaded into it. For some reason,at some point I can't recall,in England,the size of a standard cider barrel was increased. If you look at the timbers on either side of the basement doors of any real old house over there,you will see that they have been hewn away in a roughly circular form,to barely admit the new,larger barrels of cider.

And yet,in spite of spending probably well over $100,000 on the giant cider press and cider mill,the museum has never found a good place to locate it. They are talking about giving it to Mount Vernon. And,I never got around to stamping my name on it. So,it will be a mystery who made it pretty soon. Too bad. A major 18th.C. industry neglected.

If you haven't seen this picture yet,the screw is 12" in diameter,with threads 2" wide. The bulbous part is about 15" in diameter,and the press is about 10' tall. The cider mill is also seen sitting in a warehouse.

Earl Soles,the then Director of the then Craft Shops wanted this press made for several years.finally,I thought of a way to make that huge screw,and,more importantly,how to thread THE HOLE. Then,I spent all Summer getting the screw and large timber nut on top made. That was really painful for my back. Then,I brought those parts back,and worked with the housewrights getting the frame made. I was still Musical Instrument Maker at that time,but Earl increasingly put me on special projects like the fire engine,and a few other things. Earl was the only one with the sight to recognize this vital part of life back then. This was their soft drink,and a hard drink,too,if aged.

[ray hampton]

what is the different between a wild apple and a crab apple ? the crab apple that I pick were small

[Jim McGee]

Crab apples are basicly wild type apples that are grafted onto rootstock, so all your crab apple polinator are the same veriety. Plant 100 apple seeds from the same tree and you will get 100 different apple trees, all usually sour or bitter. These would be considerd wild apples.

[george wilson]

Yes,crab apples are small. I picked them on a light house I lived at. Most apples and vegetables you buy at a store are the result of many years of selective breeding.

[David Weaver]

As stated above, all of it that I've seen is different (the apple). I'm sure the density is, too. I've only actually bought it twice, once dripping wet from Mike Hendershot (walnuts), and the attached picture is the remains of that (I sent it to george). And the other is moulding plane blanks, that are a little darker heart, but probably a more modern tree because they're, unfortunately, half heart and half sap - must not have been enough wood for heart.

The stuff in this picture is at least as dense as hard maple, and probably as hard. It's just a lot nicer to work, it would carve wonderfully, i'm sure (i've only carved it minimally for one lamb's tongue, but no surprises with it). It feels as though someone impregnated it under pressure with wax when you work it, resistant to saws teeth, etc.

Most of the other boards I've seen have had varying different types of grains and a lot more color variance.

I climbed way up to the top back of the racks at hearne and they had some 4/4 apple, hoping a board would be QS, but it was just cracked up and warped and less dense and all over the place with knots and varying grain.

Maybe someone can convince george to make a few saws out of the stuff I sent - there's probably three handles' worth.

Like Sean said, it's a bear to dry. The back side of those boards has a lot of glue where I glued checks to stop them.

I would LOVE to get more stock like this (QS, dense, wide, all heart and close to clear), but I haven't seen any.

P1040644.jpg

[george wilson]

I am wondering how hard crab apple wood would be. When I was very young,one of the light houses had some very large wild crab apple trees growing nearby. Their trunks were big,if I recall from pre first grade.

[Niels Cosman]

I've been looking for a source of applewood around these parts (new england) for saw handles and repair no luck.
i've been thinking about ordering a board or two from hearne: http://www.hearnehardwoods.com/
has anybody used them?
It seems also that they only stock european apple. I wonder what the qualitative difference is there?

[David Weaver]

It's a much different wood. If you're looking for a board that you're going to get saw handles out of, you're going to get some saw handles out of a large board if it's close enough to the center of the log, and you'll get a whole lot of wood not suitable for handles.

I've gone through the place twice, and I think they did say last I was there that they had "character grade" 8/4 (domestic, I think) apple, etc, but that means you're going to pay a lot for random grain pattern. It's not really intended for handles. It would run you $500 for a board.

They do have a rack with some domestic 4/4 apple on it, but you'll struggle to make anything with any of it. They have euro pear, etc, too.

Your best bet to get fruitwood for handles at a price you can tolerate is to watch places like cook woods, etc, when they list individual boards on ebay.

[george wilson]

$500.00 ? Maybe I should have bought an apple board instead of the peacock mahogany!!

[Kent A Bathurst]

.....most do not produce sweet fruit......... In colonial times cider was apparently a very popular alcoholic drink, and was usually made from these less than ideal apples.

Actually, for their purposes, a lot of varieties DID produce ideal fruit. Hard cider was a staple, edible apples were not. Johnny Appleseed wasn't out there sowing edible fruit - he was sowing drinkable cider.

Cheers.

[Chris Fournier]

The crab apple tree produces wood that looks a lot like orchard apple wood. I had both trees in my backyard and had to cut them down. Apple lumber is a terror to dry. The finest apple that I have ever cut and processed was an "Empire" apple tree which had been left to its own devices for about 40 years and fought for light in a forest situation. It was about 50 feet tall and produced two clear 12' saw logs. When we felled this tree we noticed that woodpeckers had really gone to town on this tree. They would peck holes in the bark and cambium layer in an almost perfect neck lace around the circumference of the trunk and branches. When we started to saw the first log into lumber we noticed immediately that the wood pecker activity had created dark chocolate coloured marks in the apple lumber, it was gorgeous. We stopped sawing immediately and sent the logs to a veneer mill and had the logs converted to veneer. This was a stroke of genius as the veneer sold for almost $5/sq ft. It was bought as a lot by an architectural millwork firm. The lumber that we produced from that tree warped, twisted, cupped and bowed itself into pretzels. The veneer was flat and lovely to work with (I got some pieces). The Empire apple tree in my backyard got worked over by woodpeckers too and I eagerly anticipated my own veneer log but at 18" in diameter it was not viable once I cut it down and checked it out. I did chip it and use the chips in my smoker and BBQ. I would have preferred veneer!

[Mark Wyatt]

Suppose I could lay my hands on a good quality apple log or two. And, I had a sawyer who would mill it to my specifications. From the wood, I would intend to make saw handles, small wooden planes, and other small projects. Other than quartersawn, how might I direct a sawyer to mill this hypothetical log to get the most usable wood, provided I wasn't interested in trying to make something big out of it? Should it be kiln dried?