Lilac

Hi Tom.

I have turned a lot of lilac. My experiance with it is that it cracks more than any other wood I have ever used. Even sealing everything up many time over, it cracks along it's length. The more it dries, the more it cracks. Some lilac has the most wonderful purple streaks running through it and because of that, I take the trouble to cut the stuff up and salvage whatever I can for small items like pens, bottle stoppers, keyrings and such. It smells really nice when you turn it, nothing like the flower. I've turned pens after letting the pieces dry for over a year and 3 months down the road, in one case, the thing split right down the middle!

A 5" diameter piece is big for lilac. If you can find a way to dry it without cracking, you should have a nice piece to work with. If there is purple streaking in it, microwaving the wood to dry it will turn the colour brown. That has been my experience.

Would I grab anymore if it was offered? Hell, yes!

Hope this helps.

Sadly, stuff that grows slow, small, and with a large lateral branch load isn't a good prospect for drying without degrade. Witness things like apple and other fruit trees pruned to spread for picking, not load straight on the trunk.

Since this is a wood loaded with pre-drying stress, might be a good candidate for boiling to relieve some of it.

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Cut the pith out of it and pray... great color when you can get it to dry though

have never tried Lilac, but other crack prone woods can be turned successfully if you do it in one session, and end up with a wall thickness of no more than 1/8 - it will move and distort, but it will be thin enough to not crack snip----------

Hi Tom

I did reply to this Question, send it and it has just disappeared into a black hole I guess :-))).

Anyway I would say: just what Mike says, I have turned it really thin and it still wanted to split, I tried boiling, it did help, but still some small checks, I have a log sitting in the shop right now, that's about 5" D and ohh 4 feet anyway, it has split in a spiral from top to bottom, Lilac is very nice turning wood, and to me it is just like Tatarian Honeysuckle, (Lonicera tatarica) nice wood, smells nice, turns nice, and just splits like the devil. A couple of years ago I tried to see ho much it would help boiling the wood, so I turned 3 weed pots, about 4" high and 2.5" wide. One I just turned and sealed with CA glue, the other two I boiled for

2 hours and one of those two I sealed with CA after that, the boiled one without CA split open after a day or two, the one with the CA also split but very little, and the one I just sealed with CA sat there for about a week and then split open wide, as I still have those pieces I measured them just before I sent the earlier reply, one still has a 1/2 inch wide split, the next one has a split in the thicker part thats about 1/8" wide and a split on the rim, the last one only has the splits showing but they are closed, so boiling and then sealing does get you close, and maybe you might be able to prevent splitting altogether, if you turn it with thinner walls. I would say give it a try, it is worth trying in my mind, and that's all you stand to loose if it doesn't work out.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo