Dogwood

[Jake Helmboldt]

Yes, dogwood turns very nicely and as mentioned makes great handles for chiseld (hard and heavy). The blight that kills many of them results in some beautfully spalted and holey wood (courtesy of critters).

For the record, cuting dogwoods in VA is NOT illegal. I checked the Code of Va and confirmed this with a friend and cormer co-worker that is now with the Va Dept of Forestry. Urban myth.

[Allen Neighbors]

Mike, that's a beautiful bowl. You really brought out the grain, and the form is great.
It doesn't look like any dogwood I've ever seen. Granted I haven't seen that much... Just what my friend Bill sent me from South Carolina. It was pink, extremely dense, and doesn't have any grain that looks like that.
Could your bowl possibly be from another type of tree?

[Donny Lawson]

Where I work people are all the time cutting Dogwood trees.I have a stack of them in the shed that I brought home.I don't know why people cut them like they do but I've gotten tired of bringing them home so lately I just let them go to the mulch pile.I've got piles of wood lying around the house in the back just waiting.Some of it will probally rot before I get to it but there is more comming in on a daily basis.I'm suppose to have a Silver leaf maple and a Box elder this week or next. I'll post some pics when I get it.
Donny

[Mike Peace]

Allen, your are right that it starts out pink. But like most wood it tends to turn brown after it has been turned a while. I think Antique Oil tends to add a bit of a yellow tint to it as well. This piece was about three years old when I turned it.

[scott schmidt grasshopper]

I have been given a dogwood peice and turned it into a box. it was nicely grained and pinkish, but when talking to my mentor he said that the local wild speices ( pacific dogwood) was bland and tannish in color. I am wondering which dogwood you all are talking about ? I have a local wild tree which is 40 ft tall and 14 inches in diameter, been eyeing it but not going to cut it if its not worthy of using. plus I am hesitant due to the rareness of the large trees.

[Hilel Salomon]

In SC, we have lots of them and not a few die. It has beautiful coloring, but it is HARD!!!!! I would put it up with hickory and locust as far as a gouge dulling wood.
Hilel.

[Frank Van Atta]

Nice bowl, Mike - I especially like the bark edge.

[Ted Calver]

Scott..we are talking about Cornus florida and cultivars.

[Dolan Brown]

Dogwood makes great ornaments. It can be turned farily green and usually will not splint. I would not cut one down just to get the wood. The tree is really pretty in bloom.

Here is the Legend of the Dogwood.

http://www.promiseofgod.com/dogwood/

[Rob Damon]

A quick question about Dogwood. We had to take down one this weekend. Half the branches were dead and the rest looked like it would only have another season and they would go to.

I saved the main trunk (bottom 11"x9", top 8-1/2" dia. about 42" long) was not that big. Because of bugs we found around the base, I ended up debarking it to to see if it was rotting as well. The first pic shows it with the two wild cherry logs that the neighbor had cut down last weekend.

There appears to be a swirling pattern and spalting in the main truck, but it is solid. The last pictures shows some weird pattern just at the surface of the sapwood. When you take a knife to the pattern, it is dark solid subsurface that looks like about 1/8" diameter.

Does anybody know what this is?

Thanks.

Rob

[Ted Calver]

Rob,
My guess is that the pattern in the last pic is from frass deposited by bark burrowing beetles operating in the junction of bark and sapwood.

[Rob Damon]

Ted, Thanks for info.

I sparyed the bark with an insect (ant/termite) spary a few weeks back and removed the bark as soon as it was cut down. I then Anchorsealed the ends.

I was trying to decide if further treatment should be done or if I should get out a drawknife and remove the sapwood areas where the patterns exist.

Rob