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Bradford Pear Banned in Ohio

Michael Nathal

Michael Nathal

Joined
Jul 5, 2015
Messages
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Location
Strongsville, Ohio
We had a discussion on Bradford Pears a while back. They just announced that they are going to be banned in Ohio next year. Here are a couple excerpts from the article:

Referred to as the Bradford Pear or the Cleveland Select, the Callery Pear tree is known for its ornamental appearance, white blooms and, notoriously, pungent smell. An invasive tree, it has been banned from being planted or sold in Ohio starting January 2023.

Thirty-eight plants have been declared invasive in Ohio by the Ohio Department of Agriculture, and among them is the Callery Pear tree, which tends to aggressively spread and crowd out native plants.
 
Also - Notorius for reaching maturity and then breaking in half during windstorms. Many communities quit planting them in public right-of-ways years ago.
 
They're everywhere around where I live and most people hate them but many still have them in their yards and along roads, walkways, etc. I don't see many new ones being planted anymore so maybe Ohio will start a trend that will catch on here.
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
We have so many invasive plants and animals that I have lost count. Sad we did not know any better a hundred and more years ago. I'm in Hawaii by the way..
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About 20 years at an AAW symposium somebody recommending a tree identification book titled something lie trees of Hawaii. He said nearly every tree on the planet had been taken to Hawaii.

I had the good fortune to have two legged resources Clark Davidson in Maryland and Dave Barriger in florida.

Another good place for invasive s to thrive is Florida. Camphor and red gum eucalyptus have become two of my favorite woods to work with.

Dennis Weiner said:
How does Bradford Pear Turn?
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Turns well. Used a lot of it in classes. Mostly a bland wood
Make nice NE bowls.
 
Dennis Weiner said:
How does Bradford Pear Turn?
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Nice to turn. As stated its bland, but crotches and branch ares can have interesting grain, needs a bit of color in the finish to hilite that grain. For 1 turn - when dry, disturbance of the surface, tool marks etc, will get a darker brownish patina/color, and the sanding required to remove it can be significant. The better the surface turned wet the easier to sand and finish. Can be said for any wood, but pear is different with the coloring in the “bruised” areas.
 
It's great stuff to turn - smooth, clean, easy to cut and get long curly shavings and can leave a great finish. A lot of fun. It's great for twice turned items. I've made a number of traditional large salad bowls from it. It has a great feel to the surface that's hard to beat. When I tell customers what kind of wood it is their face wrinkles up and they're shocked it came from what's considered a nuisance tree. Doug's right and I've given up on natural edge once turned items due to the heavy sanding required to get what I call the "oxidation layer" off that it develops while drying. It's awful. I've found a good 24-48 hour soak in an LDD solution right after turning really helps with the sanding but there's not much that's interesting about the color or wood grain to make it worth the hassle.
 
Doug Freeman said:
Nice to turn. As stated its bland, but crotches and branch ares can have interesting grain, needs a bit of color in the finish to hilite that grain. For 1 turn - when dry, disturbance of the surface, tool marks etc, will get a darker brownish patina/color, and the sanding required to remove it can be significant. The better the surface turned wet the easier to sand and finish. Can be said for any wood, but pear is different with the coloring in the “bruised” areas.
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I’m told the pear makes it great wood for those into power carving due to the fine grain. I also wonder if a soaking in alcohol when freshly cut might help to preserve the color like I’ve seen with cherry.
 
Two woods that turn similar to bradford pear are green dogwood and green madrone. Cuts like butter, you get very little tear out, no matter which tools you use. Madrone has better color. Dogwood, well lots of variations in colors with it. Our native Pacific Dogwood tends to be cream colored.

Not sure, but I think the pear is similar to holly, it can be very white.

robo hippy
 
I've turned some Pear (below) and, yes, it's very light color, but cuts very cleanly. I've also been playing around with some Yew (bushes) wood and it really cuts clean with almost no tear-out. Yew is some beautiful wood.
 

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Randy Anderson said:
the heavy sanding required to get what I call the "oxidation layer" off that it develops
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Oxidation is the right terminolgy, the thanks Randy.

Alcohol soak was suggested to reduce it. Any other suggestions? I have quite a bit from 1/2 of my own tree that came down in wind (probably more coming when the other 1/2 gives it up).
 
Doug Freeman said:
Oxidation is the right terminolgy, the thanks Randy.

Alcohol soak was suggested to reduce it. Any other suggestions? I have quite a bit from 1/2 of my own tree that came down in wind (probably more coming when the other 1/2 gives it up).
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Must get it dried before oxidation sets in. Other methods involve using microwave oven, boiling, dish washing detergent or desiccations beads to speed up drying. Search the forum or google for these methods.
 
I've found a 24-48 hour soak in a 50/50 (or close) mix of water and liquid dish soap to help a lot in sanding off the brown layer. Got it from the way Robo does his pieces. I also use it on black cherry, which tends to get the same fuzzy, thick hard as &@*% to sand off layer when drying. I'm sure there is some chemical process going on but no idea what it is. I also think the time of year harvested can impact how severe the outer layer gets. Haven't done enough testing to know but, I do know that I have spent WAY too much time trying to sand a thick fuzzy brown bradford natural edge bowl to a good surface. Once you break through the brown coloring and expose the light colored wood under it you're committed to doing the entire piece, which can burn up a lot of 80 grit paper. The brown oxidation layer just always look dirty when oil or finish is applied. I have a post here from long ago asking for advice and settled on the 50/50 LDD soak process. If you use it with cherry be aware that the water will turn dark red from the wood and will color anything else you put into it after that, and not evenly so - once cherry goes in only cherry can go in after for that LDD mix.

Rusty - if you can make it to West TN you could get all you wanted from what gets cut up and stacked by the road after a storm.

The vase on the left was not soaked in LDD mixture. The one on the right was. Same log. You can see the impact on the coloring, which I like better anyway.
 

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Doug Freeman said:
Oxidation is the right terminolgy, the thanks Randy.

Alcohol soak was suggested to reduce it. Any other suggestions? I have quite a bit from 1/2 of my own tree that came down in wind (probably more coming when the other 1/2 gives it up).
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If the color is truly caused by oxidation, one solution would be to dry the rough turned bowl in the absence of oxygen, i.e. with no or minimal air present. Easier said than done in a home environment.

You might try using silica desiccant beads to provide the drying. Put the bowl and desiccant in a tightly sealed (air tight) container or bag. Pack it as full as possible to eliminate as much air as possible. I would guess that the little oxygen left in the container would lead to minimal color change. But you could take it a step further to purge the remaining oxygen out of the container with Bloxygen or other inert gas like nitrogen or CO2. Or use a container that can handle vacuum and pull the air out before sealing.
 
Love turning it. Turns even better than cherry. Has a rather pronounced curl in most pieces due to the stress applied by the numerous branches.I have not found the oxidation to be a problem after all most woods oxidize to achieve final color....cherry, bodoc, walnut to name a few.
 
What they said - turns well, bland wood. I ebonized some and it turned out absolutely perfect. I have heard (maybe on this forum) that it's fine grained and hard enough to use for cutting threads, although I haven't done that myself.
 
Doug - yes, the lighter one on the left was not soaked. The water will turn dark red as the piece(s) soak so I assume the heartwood color is leaching out and into the sapwood. After a few pieces the water will be very dark in color. I'm still considering using the water to add color to a bland/blond piece of some other wood. I tried it once and the outcome was splotchy but, may be worth trying again.
 
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