A local landowner is clearing his property of some Russian Olive trees. He wants to sell some of the lumber and/or the logs. He says they go to 24″ diameter with most being 12″ to 14″. There won’t be any great lengths, but some 8′ to 10′ he says.He sent me a pic. of a slice of some and it is very interesting looking wood.
My questions are: does anyone out there have any experience with Russian Olive?; drying experience ( I read in the archives a note from Jon Arno that it checks easily. Jon, do you mean surface or end checking, both?); density, hardness, price range, machining characteristics and so forth.
Thanks for any input on this subject. wb
Replies
WB, Russian olive is a beautiful wood, with a ring-porous figure something like ash and a very attractive cinnamon brown color. It's a moderately soft wood, with a density comparable to black ash or perhaps even a little softer. Unfortunately, it is extremely brittle. It tends to end check badly when seasoned, making it very important that you get the ends coated thoroughly and as quickly as possible after cutting the log.
The wood's brittleness makes it a little chippy when planing and also contributes to splitting when installing fasteners. It's advisable to drill pilot holes for even relatively fine brads, especially when driven near the end of the board...but if you can manage these drawbacks, it finishes well and has a stunning appearance. Because the trees seldom get very large, it's not an important commercial species, but it's a nice wood for small projects.
Jon, thanks for the information. It will be very helpfull if I decide to buy some of the wood. Again, thank you, wb
I bought a beautiful piece of olive for a radiator cabinet top I'm making for my foyer.
I don,t know if it's russian or not ,but it's cinnamin in color with great grain patterns.
The big problem I have with this board is it has a black stains weeping from a few
cracks.I didn't think much of the stains at the lumber yard,all I saw was the beauty
and the dimensions,Oh, it's just some dirt I can sand out.Well not so,the stain
permeates the thickness of the board.I'ved tried oxacalic acid with no luck.I tried
some wood bleach ,no luck.Maybe I should try repeated slurries of oxacalic acid?
It sounds like the species you're referring to here is genuine olive. In other words, the wood of the commercial olive tree; Olea europa . Russian olive is a different species altogether (Elaeagnus angustifolia). The tree is similar in appearance, in that it produces a fruit that looks a little like an olive and the foliage (underside of the leaf) has a silver tint similar to true olive, but the woods are very different.
True olive is dense, fine textured and has sort of a waxy or oily feel, while Russian olive is a drier and much coarser textured, ring-porous wood. The problem you've experienced by using genuine olive around a heat source probably relates to its bleeding some of these oily compounds. On the plus side, though, these compounds allow genuine olive to develop a beautiful natural polish when hand rubbed. And it's a very nice wood for carving and turning, because its variegated marble-like pigmentation looks great on a curved surface.
These are both nice woods for small projects.
rusian olive lumber
i have cut a bunch of russian olive and from my experiance it drys prety well it dose like to check on the ends a little and right down the very center of the log it has a lot of uses i built a wood topped banjo out of it and it sounds and looks great i just cut a bunch and i had to plane off about a quarter of an inch from the warp but i also dried it in the air and the temp outside has been 110 + and very dry so i will blame the warp on that i have found it looks good when used for burning but smells like burnt pop corn i hope this helps i find it similar to elm for drying and i spiked it about evry 2 ft
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