Magnolia Worth Turning?

Neighbor had a magnolia tree - the one with the huge white flowers and the big leaves - taken down and there are some

10"-12" diameter x 3' logettes out on the street. I can have whatever I want but they pick that stuff up Monday morning.

Worth getting out my chainsaw and rescuing some of this stuff - or not?

charlie b

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charlie b
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Reply to
Brent Beal

The trunk and limb wood has all the character of a sheet of bond paper. However, if you can get the root ball, especially of a Japanese Magnolia, you will be very pleased with the results. Even a good ole American garden variety magnolia root ball is interesting to turn. Plays havoc with the chain saw harvesting it though.

Deb

Reply to
Dr. Deb

Magnolia can be an interesting looking wood. Especially if it spalts. At the very worst case it is practice wood :-) Go for it!!!

Matt

Reply to
Matt Heffron

I would get some and keep in a cool place. Southern Magnolia (NOT Japanese) is fairly common here in S. Texas and I have turned a bunch. It is fun and easy to turn, but splits like a sonafagun. But I did find a way to stop it last time...

I turned and sanded the piece really close to the final thickness and design. It was a Roman looking vase about 8" tall and about 4 1/1" around at the rim. I cut the wall thickness to a little less than

3/16" or so, and cut the decorative rim down to about 1/4". As soon as I sanded to about 320, I put a good coat of 3# shellac on it inside and out and let it sit for about 3-4 months without touching it.

There was no warping, cracking or anything else nasty. But when it dried, the walls of the vase shrank down to a little less than 1/8"!! It now appears to be a really fine piece of hollowing/turning with wonderfully thin and uniform walls. I took it to the club and let them ooh and ahh over it... and then told them what I did.

The wood is pretty and white, spalts easily and has little grain if you don't get a knotty piece.

I would get myself a nice bunch of it and cover it up with a tarp or something like that. Even the logs I get will split every once and a while, with the bark on and the ends sealed. Lotsa fun to turn, though.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Charlie... I asked the same question last year and got this great (for me, anyway) advice:

if it's yellow and white, turn it.. if it's gray and brown, burn it...

I can't tell you the reasons for this, but mine was white and gold and I loved turning it..

Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

Thanks to all who responded to my query.

Looks like I'll need to switch bars and chains on my chainsaw, pick through the pile and cut some trunk pieces to workable sizes. Will seal the ends with latex tile underlayment sealer and create yet another stack of "candidates for future turnings".

If you listen for the sound of a chainsaw it's amazing how much free wood is available. Last week I scored some olive trunk and deodor cedar. This week it was peach and magnolia. Now if someone happened to take down an ebony tree . . .

The problem with having so much wood available is finding a place to store it. You can leave turning stuff outside under a tarp. But milled boards for furniture require indoor space. Have 200 bf of 4/4 QS S3S english sycamore coming and have only a vague notion of where I'm going to be able to put it.

charlie b

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charlie b

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William Noble

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Darrell Feltmate

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