THE WOOD

Wood is a wonderfully tactile medium. Full of surprises for the wood turner, in the grain, markings, aroma and character and age of the wood. These surprises are not always evident from the outside or cross section, but only reveal themselves once turning has commenced. Sometimes delightful, with wonderful spalting or colour smudges within the grain, others can be disappointing by being quite plain. I use all types of wood including driftwood found on the beach and fruit wood, e.g Pear and Plum as well as Hawthorn, Laburnum, Eucalytpus and others mentioned below.

Each wood has its own character, e.g Rhododendron initially looks plain and smooth but can give pleasant results in grain pattern and pale mauve smudges of colour. During turning there is a light, delicate perfume reminding me of Parma violet sweets eaten as a child.

Yew, quite exquisite in colour and pattern, varies from the sapwood to the heartwood. The sapwood is creamy coloured with purple, grey close grain, whilst the heartwood is tan, almost orange and may has spots of dark, chocolate brown. Silver Birch looks a softer wood which has a pearlescent quality to it and very often has dramatic spalting of brown, chive or even yellow and cream lines and splashes. The spalting is created by a fungus which has entered the tree during growth. It is a very pretty wood with a distinctive aroma when turned, almost a sweetish musty smell.

Ash, especially Olive Ash has a smokey quality to its aroma. A combination of smokey bacon, smoked salmon and an autumn bonfire. The grain here is wider, like the wide flakes of Cod fish when cooked, very often wavy and can vary in colour from light mushroom brown to greyish brown. Where spalting occurs in Ash it causes fabulous pattern of very fine black lines weaving, twisting and turning throughout the wood, with tan and cream colours trapped within. Beech can also be very similar to this. Sycamore is another fine grained wood which can have spectacular speckles of dark chive green. The grain itself has lovely circles and dots repeated along the length.