"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:419Hf.243$CZ4.159@trnddc05...

I'm going to go against the grain a bit on this one. I've turned a fair
number of odds and ends with the pith In - I'm pretty tight with a
dollar. Among those odds and ends are some willow mushrooms with bark
left on the base and cap - I usually do these by turning offset between
centers and then chucked to give a bit of angle to the stalk. You can
also get a nice oval base and cap by using the whole branch. Some of the
willow was air dried in the shed with zero protection on the ends - I'm
not recommending this, but I had only a small amount of checking on the
ends. I suspect that there are a number of species of willow, but the
wood I turned was a bit 'muddy' though it had an interesting color
variation - mostly yellowish.


Nice to hear someone else turns tilt-stem mushrooms. Do you do oval stems
too? The combination fascinates people. The thick bark is also an asset on
branch bowls.

Your experience with drying willow is spot on. Unless you put it out in
bright sun to dry, it's going to survive. Turned about twenty feet of a
trunk that fell across the drive a few years back, and the wood was anything
but ordinary-looking with the adventitious buds and the shimmering grain
reversals that make it hold together so well when drying. It is by nature a
sponge, so it demands a lot of finish to show off best.

After the first year I began metering out the rest of the willows, not
knowing when the next would fall. Had people asking for it.

It's also as good as butternut in carving and pyrography, as someone
mentioned.