Wood from Pear Tree

[Dan Wieczorek]

I have begun the slow process of trimming my pear tree back to a manageable size. I have a lot of medium sized limbs some good for anything from walking sticks to palm sized carvings. So the question is is Pear any good for carving. Should it be seasoned and for how long?


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[Ryan Mooney]

So the question is is Pear any good for carving.

My limited experience with it has been that can be a smidge a bit cantankerous (lots of interlocking grain with frequent changes) but looks really fantastic when done and cuts reasonably well considering (the stuff I had was pretty tight smooth grain). For the walking sticks I'd let them dry for 6mo to a year. Maybe rough some details on those while green and then finish afterwards, but would wax the wood pretty good if I did that.

Should it be seasoned and for how long?

Depends on what you're doing. For things like spoons, and small thinner walled carvings I'd set to while its green and then let it dry for a few months afterwards. For thicker stuff it would probably be better to split out the pith and then let it dry for a while. The wood I used was originally destined for firewood and had cracked in about 4-6" from the ends of the blocks in a dense array of cracks (pieces were originall mostly in the 10" across and 2-3" long range) due to no moisture control so it will definitely split some if you aren't careful. I don't know how long it had set before I slabbed it, but it definitely dried out a lot after - lots of radial shrinkage (it seemed to mostly stabilize in about 3 months in 1.5" thick slabs that were ~2' long - at least they haven't noticeably moved in the year+ since).