Paulownia?

I haven’t. I guess the Chinese are keeping it all to themselves.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I haven’t, but want to get some. It is light like balsa, but stronger.

http://www.worldpaulownia.com/html/paulownia_warehouse.html

-- Scott, San Diego

I haven’t either, but have wanted to as well. I do know of a few Paulownia trees around town though!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

First I’ve heard of this. It seems a bit expensive.

-- Maplewood, MN

We cut down a Paulownia tree in our garden about two years ago. I harvested the trunk. It dries rapidly and presents as a very light coloured and low mass wood, much like Balsa. In the East it is prized as timber for furniture (it is a hardwood), but I think that I would draw the line at boxes. It is also prized for boxes for tools, such as chisels.

I have since built a few boxes in Paulownia. It was not fun. The wood is difficult to chisel cleanly, so I had to cut the dovetails a little wider than I liked.

Here is one box, the pictue taken when it was still a WIP (taken when I was reviewing the Veritas small router plane). However, this shows up the grain quite nicely.

Regards from Perth

Derek

-- Building and Reviewing Tools at http://www.inthewoodshop.com

Derek – When you harvested your tree, did it have a hole up the center of the trunk?

-- Phillip -- Molino,Florida "I didn't cut it too short, I'm just making changes!"

Interesting that you posted about this wood. I’ve been reading about it and want to get some of it and try it. It is grown here in the US but it isn’t widely available. From everything I’ve read it is an amazing wood. It can be dried in less than a day from what I understand. There are some hardwood dealers that sell it. Just search on the net. It’s main growing region is the midwest. It grows incredibly fast and can reach good dimensional sizes for woodworking in just a few years after planting. When it is first growing its leaves are huge – 2-3’ in diameter but as the tree matures they become smaller and smaller. An amazing wood if there ever was one.

-- Sam

Sam,

I have a source here in town that has about 40,000 bf of it. He gave me some to play around with, but this stuff has a void in the heartwood that is natural. It looks like a giant wood boring bee has had his way with it. I can’t find anything online that describes the “paulownia” having this void in the center of the trunk though.

From what I’ve seen so far, I would have to agree with Derek about sticking to boxes and such. Kinda like pine, you can look at it real hard and dent it.

-- Phillip -- Molino,Florida "I didn't cut it too short, I'm just making changes!"