Second opinion on pear.

[delabodge]

I paid summat like £20 inc del on a pair of pear knife scales once. Must be worth a punt

 

just wouldnt take the risk putting any of that wood in my stack,,far too much burr elm too loose, even if I would more than likely treat it, I`ve some apple I cut last yr, I`ll plane a piece up and show you the grain, in pear its usually bland, slight pinky,colour,(now Im sure theres some lovely stuff around too) but your right,there might be some solid wood in it for something small like knife scalles etc,,,

[agg221]

Oddly enough I'm looking for a nice bland pear butt - the trunk from an old standard would do nicely. I want to make a longcase clock case in late 17th century style, using ebonised pear. The one on ebay is too short though.

 

I don't reckon the woodworm will have gone right through that one - maybe a couple of inches in all round, which would still leave a decent lump if I'm right. I reckon this because it has been barn stored, and the worm give up when it gets too dry and move on to something more palatable.

 

Alec

[ucoulddoit]

I was given a small pear butt a few years ago from someones pile of 'valuable timber' which they had been hoping to sell. It had been stored for so long that despite having the ends sealed with paint, it had dried to the extent that it had a half inch wide split the full length along one side to the heart - hence the reason it was given away. When I milled it into planks, I found the shrinkage stresses that caused the large crack had also caused numerous small cracks inside throughout, so there was not much of use in the end. It was a shame that an otherwise good piece of timber was wasted. Now I'd steer clear of timber dried for an appreciable length of time in the round and would recommend halving or quartering anything that is not being milled into planks so that the smaller section have a better chance to dry without splitting.

 

Andrew