Creative Woodworks & crafts 2005-03, страница 42

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nails and screws well, and prevents splintering. The disadvantages of this are that the wood tends to fuzz, at times quite badly, so it requires very sharp tools and makes for blotchy staining. With sharp tools, it is an easy wood with which to work using hand or power tools, and takes glue, stains and finishes well. It ranges in color from light tan to nearly white sap-wood with the heartwood anywhere from light brown or red brown to a gray brown, occasionally streaked.

This photograph shows the fuzzing characteristic of willow. The board was power planed with the grain, and it still fuzzed. Feeding against the grain, however, produces a veritable miniature forest. The best way around this is to apply a sanding sealer and then sand it smooth. The sealer will also help in preventing blotching. Consider using a gel stain if your test pieces still show blotches.

Freshly harvested logs are very high in moisture content and will have a large shrinkage factor, so mill the boards 1-1/4" wider than the anticipated finished product because you will loose 3/8" right off the top. A 12"-wide board will shrink an additional 5/16" from 20% to 12%, and then 1/4" from 12% to 6%.

The majority of black willow on the market is cut in the Mississippi valley from Illinois to Louisiana, and is mostly cut into lumber. It is principally used for boxes, pallets, crates, caskets and furniture core stock with secondary uses in artificial limbs, pulpwood, slack cooperage, veneer, and charcoal. Of interest is the fact that in colonial times, charcoal produced from willow made the best gunpowder. Bccausc of its lack of durability and strength, it is not used in construction. The other species of willow find the same uses for the same reasons, with the exception of white willow, which is used for cricket bats.jjft

(top) and the female flower (bottom).

Most willows, if not all, are dioecious, which means that there are male and female trees.

The wood of willow is classified as light, not very durable, and (because the grain mildly interlocked) moderately high in shock resistance. An interlocked grain offers the woodworker several advantages: it makes the wood hard to split, allows it to hold