Wood species yet again

[Bob Cooper]

Finally cut some of this up. Also a walnut tree that had fallen. I saved some of the box elder for turning whenever I get into turning. I’ve wanted to explore building some boxes and thought some of these small pieces of wood on the property might be useful for that.

the box elder though is quite soft and light.

[Steve Demuth]

Finally cut some of this up. Also a walnut tree that had fallen. I saved some of the box elder for turning whenever I get into turning. I’ve wanted to explore building some boxes and thought some of these small pieces of wood on the property might be useful for that.

the box elder though is quite soft and light.

You've got some great color there. Unfortunately, the red will not survive exposure to light for long.

As for the soft and light: Boxelder is soft under the best of circumstances - not much different than Basswood if taken from an undamaged bole. But It's almost inevitable that if you've got color, you don't have undamaged wood, and the flame is highly likely to found next to spalting (as you have) and just plain punky wood. The coloration is almost always a response to damage to the tree further up, and Boxelder has very poor rot resistance, so you generally get color and some degree of lost wood integrity hand in hand.

[Bob Cooper]

thanks steve...well the good news is...it was cheap and if i can make something interesting out of it i can say "yea...that come off a downed tree down at the river". I have more hope for the walnut which actually had more variations in color than i expected.