Got this Rock Elm wood out of Kanata, smaller town, now part of Ottawa.
I seen this roadside Rock Elm in my sons street some years ago, like 10, looked like it had a lot of burl growths on it and looked sick with wilting leaves, told my son to make sure he got hold of some of that wood when they would cut it down, took about 2 years I think and my son called me about the tree, had been cut down and what part did I want and how to saw it up, guess I do like all, but part of it was good also, and just cut it in pieces as big as you can move, he got help from a neighbor ( he got a nice bowl for his help) this was in the fall, and I didn’t get to my son's place until just before Christmas, had to dig to find/see the logs, they had gotten a pile of snow and it was cold.
I was quite the log, and to big to load into my SUV, as it turned out it was home to several colonies of carpenter ants, and as I cut the log up there in the winter, it was frozen solid and so where the ants, hands full fell out as I cut the log into pieces I could handle and get into my truck, wood and the ants, all dead I thought, ..................... boy was I ever WRONG, I should have know better, but never gave it a thought
rock Elm logs.jpg
The tree must have been in a bad storm many years before and though full of splits and some limbs broken of it survived and grew for several decades after that, well as you can see these ants had been busy in there for a long time.
Ant riddled log.jpg
Anyway got THEM home, yes wood and ants, I placed the pieces in the shop with big thick plastic bags over them, then some days later I had just a look to see the wood, and there are these Ants staring at me and scrambling to get back into the log,
OH dammed stupid me, well I did get rid of all the ants eventually, but you should have seen me dancing every time when I sawed a piece up and had to kill/trample every ant that came scurrying out
The bumps that I hoped were burl growth, turned out to be overgrown limbs that had broken off
The wood, whatever wasn’t split and bored with ant tunnels is a real nice, dense and good looking wood, it shrinks more than any other wood that I have worked with, and here as you can see, the piece has become oval and I have left it that way, turning the bowl within the oval outside shape, next time I will round some of those square edges, but this one will stay this way
All comments welcome as always
Rock Elm.jpg Rock Elm inside.jpg Rock Elm profile.jpg Rock Elm bottom.jpg
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Originally Posted by paul vechart
