Decking the Halls with Boughs of Holly?
Sawcreekians,
A friend of mine recently bought the farm next to his. This has a couple of houses and he removed a good-sized Holly tree that was too close to the main house.
As Holly is slow-growing, this tree must have been 70-80+ years old and has a substantial trunk- for Holly 9/10" and a lot of 4"to 6/7" branches and limbs, plus a lot of smaller stuff.
Holly_1.jpg
Holly_2.jpg
Holly_3.jpg
There is a hint of potential burls.
This was scheduled for the wood stove, but from my instrument-building days, I think of Holly in the category of Boxwood and Hornbeam- quite hard fine-grained, and good for carving, purfling, veneer, inlays, and marquetry (particularly English instruments), plus expensive to buy now. In harpsichords it was sometimes used for the tongues on the jacks, which had fine details and had to be accurately made and very stable to operate- tilt on a pivot in a slot- over a long period of time. The veneered banding on the case might have Holly bands and marquetry among burl Walnut panels. This is seen on with 16th, 17th, and 18th C. English furniture also.
Of course, this may not be the same species as I've seen on historic instruments and furniture.
The thing is, I never dealt with Holly in the wild as it were, and question: is Holly as valuable as I think it might be and, if so, how should this be handled- sawn, dried, and etc?
A furniture maker friend of mine goes to Oregon and selects live Walnut trees that are cut and sawn, and then he air dries it for I think 5 or 7 years, resaws, and hand-planes, but that is a different scale of project and would be handled in the on-site shop.
Incidentally, here are gates he made for a house I designed in Brentwood, CA. He forged the wrought iron as well:
Moyer Res_front_entry gate.jpg
I wish I had a photo of the dining table I designed and he made for that same house. That has a 4' X 13' X 2" top that is a single piece of Walnut with more than 150 inlay/fillets.
Thanks!
Alan Caro
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