Manzanita question

[David Dalzell]

I have several fairly large (for manzanita) logs. I have resawn them to 4/4 and they are stickered for drying. The widths, after cutting off the live edges vary between 4 to 7 inches. This is wide enough for my use (small boxes. I have never used or seen used manzanita for this type of use. Does anyone have any experience with manzanita? In the worst case I can always use it for firewood, but since the wood is so beautifully red with nice tight grain I am hoping it can be used for small boxes. Any info would be appreciated.

[jim carter]

you have come to the right place. i use manzanita everyday in my business. is it still green? it cracks most of the time unless treated right away. green, it is easy to work on. dry, its very, very hard. its great looking wood and can be used for alot of different projects. if you get a crack or two in the box, inlay with crushed turquoise. the contrast looks great and the cracks are dealt with. if you have any other questions about manzanita, let me know

[Mark Norman]

David, where in the sierra are you? we may be neighbors.
Manzanita is one of the densest woods there are, I have (regrettably) burned tons of the stuff when we cleared the home site on our property.

Around here they grow to be huge. I went for a walk just the other day to see if there is any decent size ones left to harvest for woodworking. I plan on harvesting this one in the fall:



As with any hard wood I would seal the end grain immediately to keep em from checking.

Beautifull stuff but I havent worked with any so I'm not much help.

[David Dalzell]

Well I think I live to the north of you. I live near Hwy 4 about 8 miles further up the mountain than Arnold.

I did coat the ends with 3 coats of latex paint. The wood is green. I resawed to 1" boards and it is now stickered and stacked. One slice split as soon as it was sawed. The other slices still look ok, but I only resawed them a couple of days ago.

[Bradley Potts]

Oh, good question. I just posted the same thing w/o searching first because I thought it would was a such an obscure topic. Time to go delete my post. I came across a blow-down that is huge, as in there are sections in excess of 12" diameter and several feet long. It seems like it is really, really heavy, which complicates my home-job milling to say the least.

[Steve Peterson]

There are places where 10-12" diameters are reasonably common. Most of it looks like the picture Mark posted. One side is usually dry and without bark. A 12" diameter straight log would probably only be about 24" long before it bent. The branches are very light on the inside. Not sure about the heartwood on a large branch.

Steve