Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998
Anyone use Paulownia?
Carole in VA
>Am going to the "the Candystore for Woodworkers" on Saturday and I notice they have some 16/4 Paulownia. I thought I might pick up some to play with. Would like to try my hand at carving it but was wondering if it was any good for turning.
Re: Anyone use Paulownia?
Dick Hines
>Check with Barbara Gill I think se has turned some.
Re: Anyone use Paulownia?
Carole in VA
>Thanks, Dick. Just checked her gallery and she has some nice bowls from the stuff.
Yep.
Barbara Gill, Remlik VA
>Yes Carole I have turned Paulownia. It is extremely stable. I cut down a tree behind my shop, took a log up to the sawmill and split it leaving the pith hole (about the size of my index finger) in the blank. I then turned a bowl, sanded and finished it. It was taken to my house and put on a table. The bowl remained almost round; there was almost no distortion.
It is a very easy wood to turn and sand. It makes great salad bowls; you can leave a nice wall thickness on a large bowl and still have very little weight.
You all don't have many Paulownia trees on the Eastern Shore I am told. The decoy carvers have taken them all. I have large blanks as well as logs.
If you don't mind, e-mail me what the retail price is at the store.
Re: Yep.
Carole in VA
>Thanks Barb. We do have some Paulownia here...in fact we have some on the farm. I just have to wait til they bloom to locate them again! At one time we had thought about growing them commercially, but they are apparently fairly fragile and would need substantial windbreaks to protect them from our Nor'easters. The price I have on it is $6.50 BF for 16/4 and $6.00 BF for 4/4, which doesn't make much sense to me. I suspect a typo. I will let you know when I get back tomorrow.
Re: Anyone use Paulownia?
Richard Allen
>Hi Carol
Here is what little I know about the wood.
It turns great though leaves a bit of fuzz. That fuzz sands out quickly. The wood is very light and very soft. It is actually more of a grass than a tree characterized by the hole in the pith. It grows fast with wide growth rings. It takes finish well. The wood is prized in Japan for making wedding boxes and as structural elements in temples. The wood is very stable with very little movement from green to dry. The end grain is wide open and care should be taken to use sharp tools. The wood doesn't dull tools but sharpen often and consider honing for cleaner cuts.
Sometimes there is a purple streak through the wood.
The wood was originally planted for the large seed pods which it produced. Those large seed pods were used as a packing material, much as Styrofoam peanuts are today. The tree is easy to spot in the spring with large purple blossoms.
Good Luck
Re: Yep.
Brad Vietje
>Carole,
You'll probably find that the price is correct. Wood is usually more expensive in wider or thicker chunks because the larger sizes are more scarce, and take a lot more kiln time to dry.
Royal Pawlonia was/is also used for Japanese sandles, I'm told.
Safe spinning,
Brad Vietje
Thetford, VT
Re: Anyone use Paulownia?
Frank
>I'll second what everyone else has said. I've turned quite a bit of Pawlonia and like it. Very light blonde color makes nice contract with other things or for dyeing. Also, as stated above, you can go from soaking wet green to finished turning without any worries of cracking or warping. Problems are easy to damage, easy to scratch a finished product unless you use a hard finish. Overall a winner.
Re: Anyone use Paulownia?
Joseph
>I've never turned it, but I do have several hundred behind my house. In the early '80's we were getting about $2.00/bf on the stump. The market has been flooded and the stumpage price has gone down. The plantation grown paulownia is not desirable for the Asian market. They want the slow grown trees with tight ring patterns.
