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Four of five years ago some knucklehead ran into one of the decorative Bradford pear trees by the entrance to our neighborhood. It knocked the tree over and our gardener bucked up the trunk and piled the wood at the side of the street. We don't have a wood-burning fireplace, but we do like to camp, so I hauled the wood home, split it and stacked it in the garage. We have burned some over the years, but there were still a dozen or so pieces I the wood pile. I have been carving spoons from cherry and birch. I like them, but wanted to try sawing out some blanks with my new Grizzly band saw and thought I'd give pear a try.
I have to tell you, fully dried pear is a lot tougher to carve than green birch. This stuff is really hard. I roughed out the spoon, but gave up on carving the bowl with my Flexcut spoon knife. Today I picked up some cheap little carving chisels at HD. After a half hour putting an edge on the spoon gouges I went back to work. Success!. I managed to pare out the bowl, the rasped the rest of the spoon into shape. I sanded it to 600 grit. This wood really feels silky, I followed a suggestion I read on another woodworking site. I heated the oven to 350 degrees, slathered the spoon with oil, then put it in the oven for three minutes and took it out. As the wood cools, it sucked the oil into the fibers better than it would by just soaking.
The result was better than I expected. It turns out pear is a very attractive wood. I might have to resaw some small boards and try making a box or two.
Have any of you tried wood-pile pear before?
I have to tell you, fully dried pear is a lot tougher to carve than green birch. This stuff is really hard. I roughed out the spoon, but gave up on carving the bowl with my Flexcut spoon knife. Today I picked up some cheap little carving chisels at HD. After a half hour putting an edge on the spoon gouges I went back to work. Success!. I managed to pare out the bowl, the rasped the rest of the spoon into shape. I sanded it to 600 grit. This wood really feels silky, I followed a suggestion I read on another woodworking site. I heated the oven to 350 degrees, slathered the spoon with oil, then put it in the oven for three minutes and took it out. As the wood cools, it sucked the oil into the fibers better than it would by just soaking.
The result was better than I expected. It turns out pear is a very attractive wood. I might have to resaw some small boards and try making a box or two.
Have any of you tried wood-pile pear before?