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Dogwood Wood

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Dogwood Wood

#1

Dogwood Wood

John McGaw

I have always thought that dogwood produced a warm-colored wood. I was given a hunk of trunk some years ago and have used it for various little things from pulls to refrigerator magnets to pegs. To me it looks a bit like pearwood.

Last month I cut down a front-yard dogwood that had given up the ghost for my next door neighbor. She was sentimental over the tree for some reason so I decided to turn something for her from the remains but what I came out with is white -- somewhere between holly and maple. Any idea why this would be? This was definitely dogwood as I've watched it bloom over the years and I'm sure that nobody swapped out the tree while we weren't looking.

Re: Dogwood Wood

#2

Re: Dogwood Wood

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

All the dogwood I have worked has been white. No idea what the heartwood looks like.

Re: Dogwood Wood

#3

Ellis Walentine

Multiple colors

Ellis Walentine

Hi JL,

I took down a favorite old dogwood a couple years ago that had been slowly dying. I don't know if its slow demise caused a color change, but the main trunk was about half white and half a pearwood color, not at all divided along the sapwood/heartwood areas. Other parts of the tree -- limbs and roots -- were mostly white.

Ellis

Re: Dogwood Wood

#4

Re: Dogwood Wood

Hank Knight

Most dogwood has is an off white color that ages to a light amber. It has an unremarkable grain. It is very hard and stands up well to abuse. One of it's main uses was for loom shuttles in the textile industry. After many passes through the loom dogwood shuttles were burnished to a silky sheen that allowed them to pass through the warp without snagging. In recent years the dogwood population, especially in the Southeast has been decimated by a fungus called Anthracnose. It slowly kills the tree and there's little that can be done to save a tree once it is infected. The fungus is ravaging the dogwood population in it's native range. It stains the heartwood a bright reddish brown. Here's a mallet I turned from a dogwood I lost in my yard to the fungus.

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Re: Dogwood Wood

#5

Re: Dogwood Wood

John K Jordan

John, I've cut and dried quite a bit of dogwood and have seen a variety of colors. Most is a white or creamy white with a dark brown heart. Often the wood has a pinkish cast, sometimes darker, occasionally with a variety of colors. Some was a darker, especially when spalted. All of it darkens with age. The salt mill is maybe 8-10 years old and is much darker now, perhaps a sort of creamy brown.


Dogwood is one of my favorite woods to turn since it is hard and fine-grained. Besides boxes and things I use it for functional things like tool handles and spinning wheel parts. Excellent for thin spindles.

Some other things with some variety of color, the light used to photograph makes a huge difference, of course.

Toothpick box:



2nd and 4th batons


Straight off the tool, with no sanding



This box was quite pink when turned.


A well smacked mallet.


JKJ

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