Ironwood

[Geoff Keyes]

I love ironwood and I hate it.  I had a handle slab just about finished and ready to glue up and it split in half, lengthwise.  Sigh

 

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[Geoff Keyes]

This, this is what I hate about ironwood.  Well, that and the smell, and the way it eats up tools.

 

 

[Hoy's Forge]

It always happens after your heavily invested in time , forcing you to start over. 

[Bob Ouellette]

I had a piece of end grain wood do something similar to me when I was doing the final fit up. The back half of the handle came off in my hands just holding it.

[Gazz]

Iron wood, I have a question.  There are trees that grow in the woods where I hunt in NY (and also in my back lot here) that while small, have a look like they are made of muscle and have a thin gray bark tightly stretched over them - all lumpy and such.  One of my hunting buddies called them ironwood but I always doubted that's what they really were.  Then later I was giving one of my older neighbors a tour of my property and he commented that I had buttonwood trees and said they were used locally to make buttons from as the wood is hard and tough.  Another friend has an app on her phone that will identify various flora if you provide a picture, such as leaves or buds.  Her app says it is officially American hornbeam and one of its common nicknames is ironwood and one of its common uses is tool handles as it is so tough.  I made a hiking staff from one and it is certainly hard stuff, it is also difficult to drill with the grain as the fibers clog the flutes quickly.  I was working the wood while it was green which may have been part of the problem.  It is very light in color nearing white and the grain is fine and nondescript.  So is the ironwood that is mentioned here frequently and is used for knife scales and handles the same stuff?  The stuff I worked with does not look like the stuff in Geoff's pictures.

[Geoff Keyes]

What I have been working with is Desert Ironwood, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olneya Olneya tesota  which is a member of the legume family.  Also called palo fierro.  It does not grow anywhere outside the Sonora Desert of California, Arizona, and Mexico.  It's a slow grower, and very hard.  It's always full of silicates and it just eats up tools.  As far as I know it's protected now, most of what I have was collected in the '60 and I bought it from the nephew of the guy who got it.

 

There are lots of hardwoods that are called ironwood.  In my part of the world there is the Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor).  "Use by People: The wood, known as “Ironwood” in English, was used for many tools and utensils by natives.  It was made even harder by heating it over a fire and polishing it with horsetail stems.  It was used for roasting tongs “because it won’t burn,” for digging sticks, fishing hooks, needles, canoe paddles, bows, and spear, harpoon, and arrow shafts,  Oceanspray pegs were used in construction, when nails were not readily available."

 

I have never worked in hornbeam, but I've read that it's tough and hard and good for handles.  What does it look like (the wood, not the tree)?

 

Desert Ironwood was used to make bearings for steam engines.  They would form a pillow block and then let the shaft burnish it's way in.  The wood hardly rots at all and is so heavy that it sinks in water.

 

Geoff

[Alan Longmire]

8 minutes ago, Geoff Keyes said:

What does it look like (the wood, not the tree)?

 

Looks like beech, but with even less figure.  Creamy white with very fine stippling, not as white as holly, not as yellow as boxwood.  Grain barely visible.  I have some that's been curing for the last 15 years, I may try it for tool handles next time I need to make any.  

[Joshua States]

Desert ironwood is protected in the US, but not in Mexico. Most of the stuff you can buy is imported from south of the border. Around here, it's cheap. I got precut handle blocks, 5x2x1.5 for about $12 each the last time I bought some. It's beautiful when polished and the burls are mesmerizing.