WoodTurning Bowls from BoxElder

Another habit I’ve developed and really want to explore seriously is sawmilling. Portable sawmills come in many shapes and sizes and the purpose is to basically turn a tree into usable lumber. Could be framing lumber. Could be timbers for timber framing. Might even be slaps of varying thickness ….something I wanted to comment on here. Nothing like opening up a log to see God’s inner design, something that can be used to create a beautiful Woodturnig Project, bowls, knive handles, candle holders, pens, lamps ….you name it! Turning BoxElder on your lathe can create a beautiful project.

It turns out that Boxelder is releated to Maple. When we tapped maple trees for syrup we also tapped Boxelder ….I forgot all about that. There is literally no difference in taste of the syrup from boxelder or maple. ……no cost for that little side note!

BoxElder from Portable Sawmills

This guy posted some pics on facebook of boxelder, beautiful wood with red and blue tints running in veins throughout the wood. I watched a video by someone I’ve been following who did a box elder live edge bowl from a piece of boxelder that just turned out beaufifuly. I will try to post it here, not sure if I can find it as I am writing this.

I always considered boxelder garbage wood, no good to burn and certainly no good to use as lumber. Turns out box elder is a diamond in the rough. You can read the facebook comment I made below, and I think I will swipe the images he posted ….hope he doesn’t mind. They are pretty cool over at the sawilling group.

BoxElder Burls Used for Woodturning and Furniture Making

One thing to look for in any tree for turning and especially boxelder are burls, these are outgrowths or deformities in a tree trunk that make beaufiful turnings. You can cut boxelder burls with a portable bandsaw mill, you can use a lucas slabber and depending how big you can get slaps from these burls that are just beaufiful and can be used for countertops to bowls, lamps and furniture ….check out this video on some boxelder pepper mills.

Here’s the facebook post about boxelder milling and slabbing you can find more info on.

Scott Parat wow, nice looking slice of wood, wonder how long the red will stay red or if it will fade away?

when I first got my woodburning stove, 30+ years ago the first wood I had to burn was boxelder, burns fast and burning it green makes for nice chimeny fires 🙂 ….I had boxelders falling all the time, never had any idea it looked so good when milled. Wish I had my mill, still run into boxelder.

thanks for the pics! Planning on redoing out kitchen, thinking of concrete tops but then showed my wife some of the slabs here in the group ….she loved em, if the color can be stablized I even think I might consider something like sliced up.

Wonder if anyone used boxelder for tops?

I do some wood turning, really just learning. There are a couple of guys who cranked out some beautiful live edge bowls from boxelder ….some of the most beautiful I’ve seen. Funny how something that was once garbage, looked at a different way is now a diamond.

Thanks for sharing!

Check this out for a BoxElder Bowl Blank!