Thread: Peach / Apricot Wood

Originally Posted by goingbush

There is a fortune gone up in smoke, all that gidgee and lancewood bulldozed and left to rot or burned in central QLD, Ive fetched $30 on ebay for a turning blank, most people see it as waste or firewood

Gidgee is THE firewood. Often former Winton residents when returning to town for a holiday, wedding, funeral, etc. would tow an empty trailer out to fill up with gidgee. Produces very hot coals and reduces to a fine white ash. Camp cooks always had the horse tailer bring in some gidgee for the fire.

There is no shortage of gidgee scrub in the west. Get yourself out there and cut a load. It is as hard as hell and blunts chainsaws smartly.

Originally Posted by crash

I have thought about this as well, but creating the shavings would be the hard part - maybe with an electic plane set to a thick cut? With a cahinsaw you risk oil contamination from the bar oil.

Looks I could be busy over the next few weeks.

The other tought is the smaller pieces could be pen blanks.

You can use vegetable oil instead of engine oil.

Originally Posted by crash

I have thought about this as well, but creating the shavings would be the hard part - maybe with an electic plane set to a thick cut? With a cahinsaw you risk oil contamination from the bar oil.

Looks I could be busy over the next few weeks.

The other tought is the smaller pieces could be pen blanks.

x 2 for pen blanks. I'll buy a dozen off you.

Maybe try and find some trees that already have some dead wood on them (or fully dead) as they will be dry and more desirable to sell as blanks - woodturners usually want dry (stable) timber so they can use it straightaway, well, I do, on the odd occasion that I get into my lathe shed.

Sigh. I really should tidy up that shed one day soon. Kick out the snakes and spiders and do the acrylic pen that I told my wife I'd do ahem, cough, er, ahem 2 cough, years, ahem, ago.

Originally Posted by bell1975

Maybe try and find some trees that already have some dead wood on them (or fully dead) as they will be dry and more desirable to sell as blanks - woodturners usually want dry (stable) timber so they can use it straightaway, well, I do, on the odd occasion that I get into my lathe shed.

Depending on what the blank is for, some items like dishes and bowls can be carefully microwave seasoned.

I would be very wary of working with that wood, I don't know how old this wood is but it will be full of every known Pesticide and Herbicide known to man. If old enough (50/60's) could have DDT, Agent Orange/White, Tordon, you don't know, it will have at least been sprayed with a chlorine based spray and if you burn it you will produce Dioxins. Unless the orchadist was a deadset organic farmer you will be playing with a witches brew of toxic carcinogens and beware if he decides to burn it off, because if this crap lands on your property you will own it forever, would be lovely smoking food with that brew, regards Frank.

Ummm, Agent Orange, Tordon, 5-T40 were used to kill trees. Not likely to contain those. However chlorinated hydrocarbons like DDT, BHC, Gammexane, Lindane were poured onto crops of all kinds from the late 1940's on. These actually saved the sugar industry in Far North Queensland. Not good for people and animals though. Even so, they were used on livestock in volumes that stagger the imagination today now that we know more about the long term effects.