Ornamental olive question

Olive grain

Andi Wolfe

>It's supposed to look that way! You'll notice that the darker material is deposited at the end of the season in the late part of the annual growth ring. A lot of different woods have this characteristic pattern - makes it fun to turn, that's for sure.

Re: Olive grain

jared herbert in ia

>Is this wood the same as what we call Russian olive? Russian olive is a very hardy windbreak tree commonly planted around here. I never thought of using any of it to turn. Jared HErbert

Re: Olive grain

Wolf Kiessling

>I don't know the answer to that, Jared. I guess there are several types of olive tree, this one came from Corpus Christi, Tx. The guy who owns the tree just called it ornamental olive.

Wolf

Re: Olive grain

Wolf Kiessling

>I hear what you're saying, Andi, but here's what's puzzling to me. If you look at the picture I posted right above, called "The Other Weed Pot", you won't see any of that black colored grain. Both of the branches came off the same tree so why doesn't the other branch have any of the black grain?

Wolf

Re: Olive grain

Andi Wolfe

>Wolf, I can make a guess or two. The "other" pic showed the bark still on the piece. I've just looked at my stock of olive branches (wild olive from South Africa) and the sap wood doesn't have the dark deposits in the annual growth ring. It could be that there is an oxidative process that goes on with the heartwood, which would darken part of the the growth ring, or perhaps there is an active deposition of darker material targeted for the late growth phase of the annual ring. In general, the darker appearance of heartwood compared to sapwood is the result of such active processes in the stem.

Andi Wolfe

http://www.AndiWolfe.com

Re: Olive grain

Andi Wolfe

>In my experience, all species of Olea (the botanical name for the olive genus) have an interesting grain pattern. It's a lovely turning wood.

Andi Wolfe

Re: Olive grain

Wolf Kiessling

>That sounds better than anything I could come up with, Andi. Thanks. Makes for interesting turning anyhow. I've got just a little bit left, enough for a couple more weed pots. Hope it turns out like the last pot instead of the first.

Wolf

Re: Olive grain

Eduardo Sarmiento Hall-Lima Peru

>Well this is my say I have turn a lot of olive wood they are all the same wood but were they grow is alot of diference in grain and texture like for example: the olive from the south of peru is totaly diferent from the olive from greece and south of spain and italy this olive wood the white part can be use for contrast but the one here cracks badly and warps a lot now the ones from israel & lebanon are the best for grain and texture spain and italy are very oily and very difficult to work very hard maybe because are from very dry land .

Re: Ornamental olive question

Eduardo Sarmiento Hall-Lima Peru

>the black comes ussually from the burning of the tree after it was cut at least thats what I have seen and turn here in peru

Re: Ornamental olive question

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>I'm curious whether your "ornamental olive" is the same as the olive the others are discussing. The figure looks a lot like an ornamental tree planted in south Florida, called "Black Olive" or "Oxhorn Bucida" Bucida buceras. The climate in Corpus Christi is warm enough to support that species. This is an incredibly tough wood, and I have found it to be very difficult to turn (it almost convinced me to give up bowl turning).

The genus Olea, specifically O. europa, the commercial olive, is quite different in both grain patterns and ease of turning. It can also exhibit many different patterns in the same tree. For example, I have are two very different examples turned from the same piece of wood. You've recently seen another photo of the second one.