Ironwood by PatGoltz
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Description
I am a sucker for gnarly wood, on or off living trees. This was on a living Ironwood tree. Ironwood is one of the hardest woods known, and for the life of me, I don't know how the natives of northern Mexico carve it, but they produce beautiful wooden sculptures from it. I have several. Anyway, I was out birding, and there weren't any birds, so I turned to other subjects, and got this photo. Obviously, nature can damage even hardwood trees, and it looks like at one point, someone helped it along a bit, cutting off a limb when the tree was younger.
Found in Tucson Mountain Park, Arizona, USA.
Comments (4)
whaleman
I once bought quite a pile of ironwood from a lumberyard. It was from southeast Asia, and is floated out on rivers with a balsa log tied to each side because ironwood will not float. I found it very difficult to cut with even carbide tipped saw blades and eventually sold it to a young woodworker. My pieces were rough 2 x 8 and such, up to 16 feet long, extremely heavy and almost impossible to handle. I even tried machining a small piece on a metal lathe and it flew out. I still have a 2 x 2 x 8' piece. I tried several lumberyards in the city and not one would cut any of it for me at any price! I am glad it is gone!
thecytron
Xcellent ironwood texture!
phfrancke
beautiful image - the image and whaleman's interesting history made me do a google search. I'm guessing that carving is about the only application to it and that such woods are now very rare. Also I read something about using a scroll saw for best success. If I had a length of it, perhaps plane and scroll saw puzzle pieces of an animal shape.
Fidelity2
Your masterpiece is very cool. Thanks. 5+!