I was wondering if there is any difference between turning above ground wood and root wood. Assuming that the root material has been cleaned and trimmed.
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Turning roots
- Thread starter David A Morris
- Start date
My experience is root wood acts a lot like burl with crazy grain and a lot of knots. It can give you some really nice looking wood.
Dave Landers
Beta Tester
It's wood.
Can have weird grain (can be nice, burl-like). Strange branching sometimes. Dirt. gravel, rocks (see pic) embedded in the roots.
Can have weird grain (can be nice, burl-like). Strange branching sometimes. Dirt. gravel, rocks (see pic) embedded in the roots.
You might search messages for "root" or "roots". I've seen messages and have written about roots myself.
Roots can have amazing figure. look at this rhododendron root in the middle and bottom photos:
Box elder can have some wonderful color in the roots, more than in the trunk. However like most wood the color slowly fades.
Wood from manzanita root balls is hard and fine grained, can be incredibly figured. Watch out for the embedded rocks.
I've had roots from several trees that had incredible figure. Again, watch for embedded rocks and dirt. Before I cut up any root I use a pressure washer to remove dirt.
Root wood is sometimes burled. This wood was at the roots of a white oak tree:
And I got some amazing spalted dogwood from roots of a dead dogwood tree cut down years ago. I dug it up with a backhoe.
JKJ
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I stopped working root balls and roots when I hit a paving brick in a root ball with my chainsaw. It was totally encased in wood with no hint of it being there. So rocks and sand will also be hidden. Oh yeah, a paving brick will actually remove chain teeth. Imbedded materials are always a hazard. I’ve cut through steel bars and even a piece of black pipe with a street T on it. Higher chance of termites and carpenter ants too. Urban trees increase the likelihood by a huge amount!
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Really nice! I think it might be worth the risk of embedded stones.
Just did a forum search for "root". Now I want to go out and cut down trees so I can get to the roots! 
Just kidding. Thank you all for your input.
Just kidding. Thank you all for your input.
When I had people install a "grade beam" to hold up a 2nd story house extension with steel posts, they had to remove a big stump in the way. They guy went through a bunch of chains cutting the roots in the dirt and small stones.
When I needed to remove a huge cherry stump when doing some grading near the county road, I couldn't just dig down with the backhoe since there was a gas line on the edge of the road. I dug the opposite side away then used an axe and other hand tools to cut the big roots on the other side. Took a while but worked well. (One thing about that cherry stump was the blanks I cut from it, unlike most wild cherry, absolutely refused to crack! It was more dense too, as stumps and roots are sometimes, and beautiful to turn.
One thing that can help when cutting up roots, even after pressure washing off as much dirt as possible, is use a carbide chain on the chainsaw. Not cheap. That's all a friend uses anymore. I bought one and tried it and it worked OK but didn't cut as fast as a steel chain. Also, the friend paid for a diamond sharpening wheel so the shop could sharpen them. I didn't buy a diamond wheel for my sharpener, but I did use a small diamond cylindrical bit on a Dremel to sharpen.
JKJ
yup, very confused grain structure at times
There is another way vacuum evacuation system.
"Vacuum evacuation" generally refers to vacuum excavation (hydro excavation), a professional, non-destructive method of using pressurized water (or air) and a powerful vacuum system to safely remove soil from around tree roots and stumps.
They used it in my street when widening the road