In article ,
"darin-N O S P A M-nntp2" "darin-N O S P A
wrote:
We had one fairly rotten fall down hear, about 5 inches across. it makes
very nice bowls when turned cross grain, and finishes very easily. end
grain looks neat too, but not as neat as cross grain IMHO.
it also seems to have random pockets of very soft and spongy material,
depending on the size they can make interesting holes, or make the whole
thing fly apart.
I also found that it doesn't glue particularly well, and if your going
to turn it and glue it to a block, turn it asap after gluing up.
I think it must be pretty oily, but it smells beautiful when worked with
tools that get it warm.
It does have a tendency to split as other mentioned, but my chunks were
a couple of 2 ft sections, and the splits all seemed to e radial splits
on the outside.
It didn't seem to warp much as it dried, YMMV with this.
the crotch's are especially nice, the purple and greens all interweave
and its very beatiful, looks best with a penetrating oil(like tung) and
lacqure over top, then polished with wax. the oil brought out some
patterns that were very faint, and the lacqure seems to make the purples
look brighter then with a polyurethane, or just wax over top of the oil.

P.S. sorry for rambling.
Has anyone out there done anything with lilac? We had some heavy
straight-line winds roar through here Sunday night, and our neighbor
lost a 60-year-old lilac about 6" in diameter. I was cutting it up to
dispose of it for him when I saw that it had the most amazing reddish
purple rings. I managed to salvage about 5' of reasonably straight wood,
and I've tucked it away for the day when I finally buy a bandsaw :-)

(I have no idea what I'll do with it, but maybe I can make some small
boxes or use it for inlay or pen blanks or something. It just seemed too
interesting to toss out.)

Darin

P.S. I just did a quick Google on "lilac wood", and it turns out I could
make myself a Wand of Enraptu

http://www.autumnspath.com/the%20limited%20wand.htm

Do you suppose there's a huge market for these things? (I sure hope not.
Not to make fun of another's belief system, of course :-P

--
God may have made the flowers, but the devil pollinates them.
-Amanita Private Dancer

Maybe I'm just a pessimist and am totally wrong; I could live quite
happily with that.
-SATAN