Dear Berti,
This is an interesting topic. Over the years I have tried a number of woods with various success. These days I am constrained from this exploration by the demands of my waiting list. Currently I can hand select my blackwood and mopane from my wood broker, and I am sitting on a very nice pile of French boxwood that has aged for 20 some years. These other woods, although interesting and in many cases lovely, just aren’t available to me reliably enough to offer them in my catalog.
In some cases I am able to get logs and then eventually mill them myself. I am able to do this with boxwood due in part to the relatively small size of the logs as well as its relative ease of machining. I used to mill larger logs on an old meat cutting bandsaw converted for this purpose - but I had a number of close calls and these days, prefer to keep all of my fingers and buy turning squares instead!
Here are some woods that I have tried:
Mountain Mahogany - this is still one of my favorite, and what I will probably resort to when I run out of this French boxwood, unless I or my wood broker can locate more. This tree grows in the northern Great Basin at higher elevations, and is a favorite for firewood in that region for its density, about the same as blackwood. The wood is as fine grained as boxwood, relatively stable if properly dried, and in moderately sized trees is a nice uniform color similar to aged or stained boxwood. In the apple family. I have tried other Rosacea including another Pacific Northwest native called Oregon Crab Apple, all with limited success compared with Mountain Mahogany.
Desert Ironwood - depending upon how it has been stored, Desert Ironwood remains one of the most superb woods for flute making in my opinion. There are a few wood suppliers offering it again, from Mexican trees as all of the trees in the US are protected. I’ve only been able to find this from retiring wood carvers who brought up several logs to work back in the 60’s and 70’s when it underwent a popularity boom, as an alternative to Red Cedar, who gave up almost immediately due to the hardness, but kept the wood aware of its value. If stored in an even environment, the wood is fine. However my current pile was stored in a hot garage - and is virtually useless - every flute attempted cracked! I am planning to investigate some of this recently cut material.
This wood is a lovely dark brown color with occasional gold streaks, not unlike aged Cocus. Very hard and heavier than blackwood. Smells like dirty socks when turning. Tonally it is one of the richest in terms of resonance and quickness of sound.
Olive - another favorite of mine. When turned, it makes the entire workshop smell wonderfully! Considerably lighter than boxwood - however, if kept oiled it makes for a fine instrument with a warm reedy tone, if somewhat weak. I was fortunate to get some from a fellow wood turner in California, who rescued the wood from a large tree cut down at the University of California at Chico campus to make way for a new building - this turned out to be the largest Olive in California, and planted by Spanish missionaries! Ooops! All of the wood from this tree was fiddleback and incredibly lovely.
Pistacio - The same friend has some of this from local orchards down there. This is another wood worthy of investigation - once dried. Tonally it is excellent, being somewhat more strident than boxwood, but with the same quickness of tone. It ranges in colors from a brownish green to oranges and reds, sometimes in the same piece.
There are other woods I have tried - our local Madrona, Manzanita, Lilac, Almond, etc. as well as a few like Mesquite. None of these have been very suitable either tonally or stability-wise.
Casey Burns
www.caseyburnsflutes.com
yet any way