Persimmon, Lemon, and Loquat - Worth Saving Some Logs/Branches?

[Leo Butler]

A friend of mine who lives an hour and a half away had some trees trimmed/removed and has offered them to me. They're lemon, loquat, and persimmon which I've never heard of before for woodworking. I poked around a bit and it seems at least the loquat and persimmon are useful for woodworking. I'm wondering how worthwhile it would be to fetch any of this given the time investment. I've got the bandsaw to handle running some logs through, but I'm thinking the wood would need to be pretty special to make it worth it. Any opinions about these species?

Haven't gotten the dimensions to go with the species yet but the pics show some 6" to 8" diameter sections, perhaps 4' long. Others are smaller.

- Leo

[Sam Force]

No experience with either wood, but I would make the trip have a cup of coffee with a friend, spend some time visiting and come home with some wood I've never used before. Sounds like a double win to me!

[Zachary Hoyt]

I use persimmon for fretboard and bridges on banjos and guitars, it's a nice wood to work with and pretty in a way. I think it's also used for golf clubs, not that I have ever played golf or know anything about it.

[Bradley Gray]

I've used a fair amount of persimmon. This is the Northern edge of its' range and they get pretty big here - I have some 24" slabs squirreled away. Light brown to cream-colored with black streaks.It is in the same family as ebony, turns really well and can be polished. Main commercial use is golf clubs.

[Brian Tymchak]

Persimmon heads for golf clubs went obsolete about 40 years ago when the metal heads hit the market. Persimmon was used because it is a very dense wood, but the club inserts were usually some phenolic or epoxy material that took the brunt of the impact. There was a term very much in the golf vernacular at the time, but not heard much anymore except from old timers: "..hit that one on the screws.." That came about due the inserts being attached to the club face with actual screws.

[Leo Butler]

How quickly do the ends of the logs need to be sealed? If I'm going to collect these, I may need to get down there during the week if it's time-critical.

[Robert Hayward]

I have tried loquat. The tree was a hurricane blow down. Trunk was only about 8" in diameter. The wood was dense and fine grained plus it worked nicely. Left one piece of the trunk with the pith in. Had planned on turning a vase. Before I got to it it split open so far it almost cracked in two. Like I had tried to split if for firewood.

[Peter Kelly]

I’d discard any branch wood. The internal stress of branches is much greater than the trunk so they’ll just twist and split as you saw them.