Half A Pear Tree

I recently put feelers out on Facebook asking if anyone was, or knew of anyone, taking down any fruit trees that I might be able to purloin a few bits from.  I’ve fancied having a play on the lathe with some ‘green’ wood, and coupled with the facts that fruitwood seems to be nice to work with, and can have lovely figuring (patterns in the grain) I thought it was a worth a shout out. I’d already got a couple of chunks of cherry from a friend, and that was drying out nicely ready for working.

And what do you know… just about a week-ish later, a ‘phone call…

“I’m just taking down a pear tree. Half of it’s in the boot. Shall I come over?”

Err… I’ll put the kettle on!

Pear Logs

And so it arrived. Very heavy, being so fresh, but I could see it was going to be beautifully figured. It was more than sixty years old and had been planted by my friend’s grandfather. The sapling had been bought from Abergavenny Market when its planter’s daughter was about two years old, so from that we could work out its age, more or less. Why is that of any importance? I’ve decided that as far as I possibly can, everything I make now will have provenance to go with it. So anything I make from these lovely chunks of pear will go out with a tag that tells the new keeper exactly where the wood came from, and in this case, how old it is, who bought it, planted it and nurtured it, and when it was felled.

The piece you see in the header of this article – from close to the base of the trunk I believe and a bit more than a foot across – was cleaved in half shortly after arrival and a section put through the bandsaw to see how it looked. And it looked good…

Sawn Pear Wood

So now these pieces are being laid out to dry and will take a  long time (years, probably) to become properly seasoned, but I’ll be having a play with a few pieces while still wet/green/fresh.

Let’s see what they turn into…