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Turning Ash - bowls, platters etc.

olaf Vogel

olaf Vogel

Joined
Mar 10, 2015
Messages
347
Likes
150
Location
Aurora, Ont, CA
Website
www.revolvingarts.ca
A neighbour is cutting down a very large white ash and has offered it to me. Having never turned ash I:

a - said "I'll take it" :)
b - did a little research

Most of my turning is large bowls and platters. So is this suitable?
Knowing how hard this can get, I'll definitely seek to turn it while green as possible.

I have made picture frames from ash and found that is splits rather easily when drying.

Is this more prone to cracking than maple?
Any special issues turning this?
 
Olaf I have turned a lot of Ash, nice wood to turn and it has nice figure at every limb and crotch guaranteed.

Never had problems with splitting, some of my most beautiful pieces were Ash wood.

Couple of pictures here, that show some of the pieces and logs, a set of three bowls with defects in them that dried just fine with no splitting.

Better get that tree/log, Ash will be very scarce in a year or two thanks to the Emerald Ash borer, especially large logs like that.

White Ash logs.jpg White Ash roughouts.jpg White Ash platter.jpg White Ash with defects.jpg White Ash bowl.jpg
 
Ash is a nice wood. It was never common where I lived so have not turned it often.
Two examples of narural edge pieces. These were part of a fund raiser by the Capitol Area Woodturner's. The ash planted by George Washington lost a couple big limbs in a storm to provide the wood.
Sherry turned the natural edge bowl and I made the hollow form.

IMG_3863.JPG
 
Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely grab the tree - once it stops snowing outside....
(spent last week in Iceland, so I'm a bit sick of the white stuff)

Leo, that's a nice collection of logs & bowls.
Al, I love the hollow form and have been looking for a good log to try that with.

Thanks for the encouragement.
Although my wife will disagree. "what? MORE logs?" :)
 
The 'olive' ash flies off the shelves when I can get it. It is one of those brown colors that every one seems to like. If it is plain white ash with no brown in the center, it is too light of a color and didn't sell well for me. Also called 'poor man's oak'. It is open grained, and if you have walnut dust in your wipe on rag, it high lights the pores and grain lines. Favorite wood of Glen Lucas.

robo hippy
 
I checked it out this aft. Its old growth, 32" dia.
LOTS of crotch pieces and other interesting sections after being trimmed many times. Main trunk is about 14'.

Had a brief negotiation this aft with the owner. They wanted most of the tree for firewood.
So I offered to buy them a cord of firewood, delivered, if I get the whole tree.
They agreed.

So far I've not "technically" ever paid for wood. But this is close.
:)
 
I'm not sure how this plays out for turning but ash is one of the few woods that will burn green. I heat my house with wood, ash will burn freshly split. Most wood will not do that. It also seasons a lot faster than most any other wood common to this area.
 
When I can get some ash with the "two tone" effect, it makes for very interesting bowls. Ash tends to be soft with the porous grain, and hard in the solid grain......so, too much sanding makes the texture a bit lumpy to the touch. Sharp tools, and minimal sanding is paramount. :D

ko
622-1 ash salad bowl.JPG
 
Mike Johnson said:
That sure does look like olive wood with the brown coloration, been a while since I had a good piece of ash. ;)
Click to expand...

Been awhile since I turned any Olive wood. Here's another pic of the same Ash bowl from above:
622-4 ash salad bowl.JPG
Here's an Olive wood bowl I did many years ago. I can see some similarity there!
Russian Olive #658 (2).jpg
ko
 
That will make a lot of honey dippers! Good score on wood! Are you going to turn it green and let it dry out? If so, I might not be around to see the finished turning.
 
Olaf,

You can never have enough wood. :)

You surely will be busy the next couple of weeks.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
olaf Vogel said:
After a long day of chainsawing and hauling ash...
I'm done and having a beer. Thinking, maybe I overdid it a bit.
View attachment 22369

View attachment 22370

Guess I'll be busy the next few weeks.
Click to expand...
Looks like it was a pretty short tree Olaf if that is all the wood from the trunk, and it has been sick for a while, lot of heart rot, but still a lot of nice wood for turning.

Better get it covered and start turning the best pieces first, have fun :)
 
Question. The city of minneapolis is taking down 60,000 ash trees because of Emerald Ash Borers. Is there a way to treat it before turning that would make it safe to have around?
 
Bob,
Be sure to check for restrictions on moving the wood.
A common prohibition is not allowing transport across prolifically boundaries such as city and County lines. If city's goal is preventing the spread of the bores they would most like have a controlled destruction if the wood.

As regards to safe. If you live in an area infested with ash bores you probably are nit increasing the danger to trees in your area.
 
I remember when they cut all the elm trees down to keep them safe. In hindsight it was revealed that some of them were resistant to Dutch Elm disease. If those weren't cut they would have produced resistant offspring. How cutting all the trees down protects the trees is such an odd practice to me.

Our city is doing it too. The council can't explain how cutting them all down saves them. They are however convinced it needs to be done to save them. Our city is getting some new boom trucks in order to cut them all down faster.

We get an annual firewood cutting permit in Northern Minnesota every year. The forest Service issues the permit, all of the restrictions are listed in a pamphlet you get with the permit. It changes every year.

Last year we had a 50 mile transport limit. If it was going farther we had to strip the bark and have it certified. The permit is written for a specific area. Obviously it was within 50 Miles of the cabin.

Adult beetles lay eggs on the bark of ash trees. When the eggs hatch, the larvae (immature beetles) bore into the bark and feed on the transportation tissues of the tree. This disrupts the movement of nutrients and water within the tree, girdling it and causing tree death.Sep 15, 2016
 
Emerald Ash Borers can be controlled with insecticide spraying, but it's expensive. Untreated, my understanding is that it's invariably fatal to the tree. The borers don't spread very far in a given year, without our help, but they're relentless. Treating large trees may be worthwhile, depending on the community, but with smaller trees, it's more cost effective to cut them down and replant with a different species. If ash trees aren't a significant portion of the urban forest in a community, cutting down even the large trees, once infected, may be appropriate.

In our community, 85% of the large parkway trees are green ash. If, or when, the borer gets here, it's going to look a lot like a moonscape. The most likely route of infection for us is campers who bring their own firewood from the midwest. Who knew people did such a thing? And none of them have any idea how devastating it will be for us. Reportedly, removing the bark substantially reduces the risk of spreading infection.
 
hockenbery said:
Bob,
Be sure to check for restrictions on moving the wood.
A common prohibition is not allowing transport across prolifically boundaries such as city and County lines. If city's goal is preventing the spread of the bores they would most like have a controlled destruction if the wood.

As regards to safe. If you live in an area infested with ash bores you probably are nit increasing the danger to trees in your area.
Click to expand...

This tree was split down the middle and had 10+ years of water intrusion into the core. That what killed it. No sign of pests.
And I moved it only about 2 km.

Mike Johnson said:
The practice of cutting the tree type down is supposed to reduce the breeding potential and spread of the insect.
Click to expand...

As Roy said, the whole practice makes no sense to me.
A- a consultant said: " you must cut them all down"
B - City counsel said "Oh my god, how do we finance it?"
C - contractors stepped up to do the job
D - no one will evaluate the success of this project for at least 10 years. Millions will have been spent and there's no point in revisiting the issue.
Nothing learned, lets do it all over again.
 
IMG_4644.JPG I called the Federal Food Inspection Agency about three years ago and by that time the EAB had spread from Western Ontario, across border from Michigan, to Sault Ste Marie in the north and the Québec border in the East. Movement was not prohibited anywhere in those boundaries. Today we had a large, about 30" diameter ash taken down at our rural church and I have enough bowl stock from one 16" or so slice and one other limb crotch section to keep me busy for a while. Really want to get at it before it starts to turn grey. Should have some nice effects from the mottled core. This is a bigger disaster than Dutch Elm disease IMHO.
 
Here is an Ash pot I worked on over the past couple of weeks. From wet wood to completion in 15 days. Used technique from Joe Hermann's platter article in Woodturning Design, April 2014 I think. Liberon liming wax over Rustoleum Black Gloss Lacquer. Am at my cottage and working from memory on magazine article.

IMG_4655.JPG
 
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