Features of drying fruit wood. Rowan ordinary - not an ordinary tree, but a whole pharmacy Why do you need red mountain ash wood

Properties of wood of various species and their comparative characteristics

Pine and spruce

By the appearance of a growing tree, hardly anyone confuses pine and spruce (Fig. 1 of the insert). But nevertheless, we will point out at least one characteristic feature by which one can unmistakably distinguish them: in Scots pine 2 (Fig. 10), coniferous needles are located on the brushes in pairs (in some species of pines there are more), in spruce 1 they are dispersed along the branches alone. It is desirable for a woodcarver to distinguish between spruce and pine by wood, but this is already much more difficult to do. As for wood, pine has a darker core and light sapwood (the outer part along the trunk), spruce does not have a core, it belongs to the so-called non-core wood species. But this sign is unreliable - in a pine tree only at the age of 30-35 years (according to the literature), and even then not always, a core appears. At the carver, the workpiece can turn out to be only from one heartwood, when there is no color border between the dark heartwood and light sapwood. There are also pines with a slightly distinguishable color difference between the core and sapwood, which is especially characteristic of the outer surface of old lumber.
But there are other signs of the difference between spruce and pine that a wood carver should be aware of. It is their combination that allows in some cases to accurately indicate the breed. Freshly planed spruce wood is bright light (pine is darker, ocher), the contrast of its growth rings is less pronounced. From time to time, spruce darkens more slowly than pine, but their tone is still gradually evened out. Pine wood smells like resin, and the smell of spruce wood is reminiscent of the smell of its needles. In the texture of spruce, the straightness is clearly expressed, it is easily pricked. In its longitudinal section, small, isolated, as if inserted, torn off from the rest of the wood and running away from the core of the knots are visible; they even sometimes fall out of the craft during work.
In terms of texture, pine is easily confused with larch, also heartwood, especially since adult pine has the same large growth rings. Their difference in resin ducts recommended in the literature (they are larger and more numerous in pine) is difficult to implement in practice. A reliable sign is to lower a piece of Wood 5-7 mm thick into the water: in two or three weeks the larch wood will get wet and sink.
Among mixed unedged softwood boards, spruce boards differ from pine boards in dark, up to black, and smoother bark. The bark of larch on the boards under the influence of atmospheric oxygen and light acquires a red-cherry color, sharply different from the color of the bark of pine and spruce. In addition, larch boards are noticeably heavier. In larch, even young, a large dark brown core is clearly distinguished, and narrow stripes on the sides remain on the light sapwood, while spruce does not have a core at all, while pine has a narrow one, and then only on wide boards.
For a woodcarver, softwoods are convenient because of their availability. Due to their wide use in construction, in the manufacture of household crafts, you can easily find the right blank for carving. However, pine and spruce also have significant drawbacks that limit their scope in carving crafts: the causticity of wood and its striped texture. Therefore, it is best to use pine and spruce for carving large crafts with large elements. These are house carvings, decorative panels on the walls of public spaces, carvings in gardens and parks. In such a carving, wood imperfections can either be leveled or even beaten. Thus, contrasting stripes make large fields of carved panels more expressive, they can be emphasized by firing, toning.
Coniferous wood is also convenient for slotted carving, the pattern or ornament of which looks like a silhouette (Fig. 11). Basically, all slotted, as well as overhead carving in home decor is made of spruce (more often) or pine (we will get to know this in detail when studying house carving). But even on a flat surface of carving crafts for the interior, an experienced carver skillfully uses strips of coniferous wood. They turn, for example, into an interesting pattern on the smooth curved and polished surface of the vase.
Large-layered bright coniferous wood is not suitable for making a small mask (a mask here means a sculptural image of a face) of a woman or a child, but sometimes it can give additional expressiveness to the mask of an old person. The same contrasting stripes of spruce or pine can make up the decor of a simple conditional or ritual mask of a simple form.
The woman's mask in fig. 12 is stylized and is part of the ornament. Here, the texture of the wood does not interfere, but is successfully used, brings poetry to the product, the craft intrigues the viewer: is it really all made from a whole piece of wood? It is the drawing of the layers of the tree that summarizes the composition.
On fig. 13 we again see how the master plays with the layered structure of coniferous wood, uses it as a cameo material: he sculpts a form, linking it with light and dark stripes of wood.
Finally, we advise the wood carver to consider that the striped texture of softwood can be used for smooth polished panels surrounded by carvings. Such
we sometimes see the reception in house carvings. The striped wood of spruce or pine does not interfere with the mask ornament (Fig. 14-16), which can be used to decorate the wall of the house and for the upper part of the architraves. If the carving is painted, it can be made up of various types of wood.
In the same forest, you can find various pines that differ both in appearance and in the properties of wood. So, a pine tree grown in a dry, high place has a harder, denser wood, the texture of which will also be with dense, narrow rings (remember, for example, ship pine). And pine, grown in a low, sometimes swampy place, has softer wood. A mighty, thick withered pine among young trees once grew alone. Its wood in the core part will have a beautiful spectrum of wide growth rings. And the outer layers, dating back to the time when the tree encountered growth hindrances, will be marked by anomalies: curling in places of overgrown old knots and damage; pitching (areas impregnated with resin) - the result of protracted wounds; resin pockets - also resin-impregnated parts of growth rings.
It is even more interesting for a wood carver to compare the individual properties of spruce and pine (as well as larch), which manifest themselves in the process of wood processing.
Usually pine or spruce is easily cut, sawn and planed. But pine that has stood for a long time (dry forest) or that has been lying dry is difficult to cut, sometimes crumbles. When falling, the workpiece or craft often breaks. In some places, the wood of a lying pine, especially if its partial decay has begun, is cut with extraordinary difficulty, crumpling the sting of the blade. It is almost impossible to cut such wood with a semicircular chisel across the fibers, it is necessary to rotate it around the longitudinal axis with simultaneous pressure on the chisel - to create a more effective cutting force by moving the blade. The hope in this case is planing with a knife made of strong steel at an angle of 45 ° to the direction of the fibers.
The wood carver needs to avoid such areas on pine wood where delamination has already begun: the resinous layers have become completely hard, and the soft ones have burned out. Under pressure, such wood is not cut, but only crumpled, springy and breaks. When choosing wood, you should also avoid those areas on the pine trunk that have darkened from the long lying of the tree on the ground, although they do not look like rotten ones. When wet, such wood seems strong, suitable for processing, an ax blow on this place is sonorous. But after drying, it does not cut at all, the tool becomes dull from it, and, no matter how you fight, it will still have to be replaced with healthy wood.
In this regard, it is useful to draw the attention of the cutter to the fact that "soft" and "easily cut" material by the tool are not always the same. So, for example, the skin is used to straighten the blade of a knife (this is also used by wood carvers) or a straight razor. Cutting leather, a material softer than wood, dulls the knife more. And the cutter of a lathe is blunted from wood more than from steel.
Considering the external similar signs of pine and spruce, the carver must take into account that the contrast of the growth rings of these wood species decreases over time, the wood acquires a generalized deep ocher tone. If the contrast of the stripes spoils the craft, it should be borne in mind that this drawback will decrease over time or completely disappear. Conversely, when contrasting growth rings are used for additional decoration of the product, the achieved effect will decrease after the wood is exposed to light.
Note that the color of the heartwood and sapwood gradually levels off over time. This applies to both pine and larch, although there are disease-prone pine woods where the sapwood is even darker than the heartwood.
Let us also draw the attention of the wood carver to the fact that often not all the positive properties of spruce and pine are used for decorative finishing of carvings. Obviously, the reason for this is the availability and abundance of the material, which causes insufficient "respect" for it.
(by the way, in many countries where there is no such abundance of conifers, pine, spruce and especially larch as a building material are more expensive than mahogany). A more careful attitude to our conifers and the study of them opens up wide possibilities for using the described trees. It has been noticed, for example, that seasoned pine wood has the warmest tone (yellow or orange). Separate tarred areas of a dry pine that has stood in the forest for a long time resemble amber. Such wood retains its shape and hardness, does not soften from heat. It is good to make beads, berries, decorative inserts in intarsia from it. The author conducted an experiment on collecting tarred pieces of pine wood, made from them a grape brush, recruited from chiseled berries. Aged in the sun and varnished, it really seemed amber, and individual berries shone through like grapes. Even the stripes of the annual layers, with their certain orientation and the turn of the chiseled berry, made the carving even more expressive. The most suitable tarred places in a pine trunk for such a purpose are knots running inside the trunk and places where the tree is injured (tarring). With such brushes, collected from chiseled berries, inserted with legs into holes on a wooden base of the brush, it is good to draw the outer contour of any frame or use them to decorate a carved column, for example, in house carvings (see Fig. 18 and 27).
The tarred parts of the pine should not be tarred before varnishing: this makes them dull and gray. This happens due to the fact that the resin (resin) dissolves in the oil.
It is advisable to combine a dark-ocher brush from the resinous parts of pine in an ornament with lighter white leaves of grapes from the same pine, but made of heartwood or sapwood. Type-setting wood can also be used for leaves, using strips of annual layers of leaf components as leaf veins, as well as varying the pattern of veins with the width of the strips, depending on the direction of the leaf processing plane to annual rings. For the main veins, it is advantageous to make inserts from dark veneer.
The core of an old large pine with large growth rings is very beautiful in longitudinal section and along and across the rings, it has an amber hue and looks like a lemon tree. This wood especially turns yellow when the craft from it is exposed to the sun and aged for one to two weeks, then oiled and again aged in the sun and air. At the same time, the contrast of annual rings softens, the general ocher tone deepens. From the core of the pine, you can select areas of lighter rings for making berries from them, yellow inserts for intarsia.
Unlike spruce, pine wood is characterized by an interlacing of the fibers of the trunk with the fibers of the knots extending from this trunk, which gives an interesting pattern in the cut. This is now used by some carvers for the manufacture of chiseled or multifaceted vases, stands for stationery. As a blank for such crafts, the so-called whorl is used - part of the trunk with branches. The more knots depart from the trunk in this place, the more interesting the drawing on the craft will turn out. The threaded product can be made from one whorl, and from a set, where several small whorls are preliminarily glued layer by layer on flat machined surfaces and with their most varied orientation to each other. It is clear that in this case, the fitting of the surfaces to be glued comes to the fore in technology, i.e. preferably the presence of machine processing.
Even more interesting crafts using gnarled pine can be obtained by gluing the product with layers of such wood. It does not have to be a chiseled or faceted vase. By manual selection and fitting along curved, curved seams, it is possible to obtain a product of any shape, and individual parts can be solid-cut from the same pine or wood that contrasts in color (for example, from linden, birch). For a vase, such details can be a lid, a handle, a bottom (base), an inclined ornament, etc. (in Fig. 47 of the insert, a vase is made in this solution, but from a different material, similar to striped pine). When pasting crafts with layers of pine wood using sawdust kneading on carpentry glue, it is not necessary to precisely fit the joints of curved surfaces, as well as into the gaps in the seams, an additional detail of any shape and any size can be inserted between the pasting parts, but with the harmony of the wood pattern.
Pine wood behaves interestingly, which, due to the disease, has acquired a reddish or even bright red hue. These reddenings come across on various places of a trunk. As a result of the experiments carried out by the author with such wood, it turned out in one case that the oiled and aged wood gradually lost its completely beautiful shade and turned into ordinary wood. In another case, such reddening was detected in a large trunk of a long-standing dry pine. Under the influence of light and oil, this wood, with a slight tarnishing of the red tint, acquired a pronounced contrast of growth rings, while the resinous layers turned dark red, the texture of the wood became exceptionally elegant and decorative. It is especially beneficial to turn such rings (bands) into wide ones, orienting them according to the shape of the surface to be treated.
Let us also draw the reader's attention to the fact that the long, thin roots of pine have exceptional flexibility and are therefore used for artistic weaving. This can also be used by a woodcarver when it is necessary that a bent part be reliable and convenient in a carved product (for example, the handle of a small vase, the tail of a monkey). Some craftsmen use spruce roots for this purpose, which are also suitable for artistic weaving.
We will talk about other properties of pine and spruce that manifest themselves during its processing, as well as about the technology of processing this wood itself, when describing house carving, where coniferous wood is the main material.

Larch.

Larch 4 (see Fig. 10) is the only European coniferous tree with needles falling for the winter. It is the most common in our country. There is more of it than spruce, pine and fir combined. Moreover, it grows much faster than these trees (1 m per year). In addition, it has the highest yield. And only two factors prevent its widespread use: firstly, when it is in water for a long time, and therefore, the possibilities of alloying are limited, and secondly, this wood is more difficult to process than pine and especially spruce. It is heavy, dense, its strength and density is 30% greater than that of pine.
However, larch has a valuable property - it is resistant to decay, especially in conditions of severe wetting. Piles, supports, sleepers, telegraph poles, dams, moorings, ship formwork are made from this wood, and without special impregnation. In addition, larch is the champion among trees in terms of frost resistance. Products from it, found in excavations in Altai, lay for 25 centuries. The wheels of the war chariots of the Scythians were also made of larch.
We also take into account the fact that larch is a long-liver. True, in some foreign literature, spruce and fir (up to 700 years) are considered long-lived among conifers in Europe, and the life span of larch and pine is taken up to 300 years. But in the Sayans there is larch up to 900 years old. (The longest-lived tree found on the American continent is the Mexican Taxodia, growing in Santa Maria del Tula, about 6,000 years old.)
The thickness of the trunks of such trees can be judged by the fact that the larch planted by Peter the Great on the shores of the Gulf of Finland has a trunk with two girths. Such large sizes of the ridge make it possible to conceive a corresponding craft, which is impossible to make otherwise than from a whole tree trunk. Of course, this in no way means that relic trees need to be cut down for carving, but larch has more opportunity to meet thick trunks than other trees.
Larch, like pine, is a sound breed. It has a pronounced large dark core, the texture is also similar to that of pine, but brighter and more decorative, so larch is often used for furniture cladding. The signs and rules for using it in carving are similar.
When dried, larch wood is more prone to cracking than pine and spruce.
We have already mentioned that some craftsmen boil the larch bark on purpose to obtain a red dye, which is used to stain the wood. True, the author of these lines has not been able to test such staining for light fastness over time or come across data about it in the literature. The reader is given the opportunity to experience this property in practice. It must be assumed that larch wood itself is most suitable for staining, just as for staining a walnut tree, an alcohol solution of the distillation product of ground nut shells or the juice of this tree is used.

Fir

Fir (see Fig. 10) is a non-core tree (like spruce). Its wood is the lightest. Therefore, fir is very soft and, along with cedar, is the least resistant to impact dents. In terms of splitting strength, the wood of both these trees ranks last among the wood of trees of other ornamental species.
Fir is used for handicrafts, which should be light, and also instead of spruce, including for the production of musical instruments. It has a particular application in the production of pulp.
A distinctive feature of fir wood is the absence of smell. But its bark smells strong and very pleasant. The needles of white, or European, fir (there are about nine types of fir in our country) are soft, on the reverse side of each needle there are two white stripes. Fir balsam is obtained from the bark, and fir oil is obtained from needles and branches.
In house carving, boards made from this wood can be used as a background for slotted and laid on carvings. For embossed and even more complex artistic crafts, it is better not to take fir.

Cedar

The scientific name of cedar is Siberian pine. In terms of physical and mechanical properties, it is between Siberian spruce and fir, but is more resistant to decay than them. Cedar is very well cut and processed in all directions. By the way, pencils are made just from cedar. For carving, including brownie, it is a valuable material, especially since it has a beautiful texture and a pleasant yellow-pink or light pink color of the core. Annual rings and the transition of the core to a wide yellowish-white sapwood are not sharp, shaded.
The wood has a characteristic smell of pine nuts. Unlike other conifers, cedar has the largest resin canals (a sign for recognizing wood species). It is not resistant to impact and splitting, but in terms of resistance to cracking during drying, it belongs to the group of resistant species (like spruce, pine, fir, aspen, linden, poplar). The density of cedar is insignificant, it belongs to light rocks, it cuts very well under a carving tool, it does not wrinkle.

Birch

Its wood is the lightest (white with a yellowish or reddish tint), which is taken into account in carving, marquetry, and intarsia. On the radial split, you can see narrow shiny and short transverse stripes - core rays. There are also longitudinal brown dashes - core repetitions.
Birch wood is homogeneous, fine-grained, well cut. It is convenient to use it for small crafts (Fig. 17), since birch reacts to temperature and humidity and can warp in large products. For the same reasons, birch carvings are best oiled with vegetable oil, which, due to its slow drying, has time to penetrate deeply. The oil will protect the wood from moisture. It is even safer to keep dry birch for 4-5 hours in hot oil, linseed or sunflower, but do not boil, because in boiling oil birch, especially if not dried, can crack or even darken and char. With moderate drying vivo birch does not crack (only small cracks are possible from the end), so the birch block can be dried sanded. In the open air, birch wood rots quickly, even if it is protected from rain. Therefore, birch is not used in house carving.
Beautiful carved crafts can be made from the butt of a birch, especially in places where the ridge passes into the roots. The texture of such wood with spectacular moiré stains is advantageous to use in polished smooth surfaces, for example, in the deepening of the bowl of a vase, sometimes with intarsia with other types of monotonous dark wood or with incised marquetry.
Ordinary smooth and polished birch wood has the ability to reflect light differently depending on the direction of the fibers. At the same time, its color changes from restrained grayish to bright light, when the luster of wood appears. This is used by marketers to vary colors and shades. For example, from the same sheet of birch veneer, you can get both the sky and the clouds on it. If you glue the surface of the craft with small pieces of veneer of various shapes, you get an interesting shimmering background. The cutter needs to know this. In this way, it is possible to close defects in wood or flaws in carvings, for example, on the surface of a vase. Facing such a surface can be done with inserts from other types of wood, i.e. apply the marquetry or intarsia method (see Fig. 232).
The indicated property of birch wood (especially due to the fact that it is very light) also has negative sides: its pieces cannot be joined, since the seam will certainly be noticeable, and the joined parts will differ from each other; flaws on wood cannot be masked with inserts and covered with putty. For example, on the table top (see Fig. 32 of the insert), in order to make the tone of the interlacing tape uniform, it was necessary to abandon the marquetry lining of the table top (from making this tape in a docked form) and use a more laborious intarsia method: cut on a flat field of a tabletop covered with ordinary plywood, the entire top veneer, except for the pattern of the tape ornament, and glue the veneer of a different color in this place.
Birch has one special property compared to other known types of wood: it has the least resistance to splitting in the radial direction. This is also used when chopping birch firewood, always directing the ax to the core of the churak. The same property was used earlier by peasants and shoemakers for piercing plates from birch blocks, from which shoe wooden nails were then made. Also, such plates easily succumbed to sharpening with a knife from the side of one edge when moving the knife tip forward (see Fig. 107). The wood carver will remember this feature of birch, which is easy to process and, if necessary, uses in his work.
As for the split in the tangential direction, the birch is quite strong.
From birch as a break-resistant wood, ax handles are made for axes subject to power loads, for example, when chopping firewood, as well as handles for tools.

Aspen

Folklore has created an aura of mysticism and mystery around the aspen. In proverbs and sayings, it is characterized unflatteringly:
"Aspen is ugly, bitchy and noisy."
"Aspen does not burn without kerosene."
"The aspen whispers all the time, damned tree" (aspen leaves on long legs and constantly in motion; according to legend, Judas strangled himself on the aspen).
"There is blood under the bark on the aspen" (the bark under the skin is reddish).
"Fever and teeth are spoken on the aspen" (the bark of the gums is rubbed until it bleeds).
Do not favor aspen tree And How ornamental material in the special literature on woodworking: it occupies one of the last places in terms of the percentage of output of parts of excellent and good quality during processing - planing, milling, turning, drilling. But wood carvers love aspen, like linden, for its ease of processing, for its light tone, fine fiber texture, and for the fact that it is affordable and even more common than linden. In the handicraft industry, aspen is also "respected" for the fact that it is not afraid of moisture, for its low density. Only Siberian fir and poplar have a density less than that of aspen, while linden has the same density. Therefore, aspen is used to make light toys and dishes. Previously, troughs, tubs, and gangs were made from it. In addition, it does not crack and does not prick from impact. In addition, aspen peels well - shingles are made from it, matches are made.
Those who are familiar with it better look at the aspen in a completely different way. It turns out that a healthy aspen tree, if it dries out for at least two or three months, burns very well without kerosene. When aspen burns, the chimney of the furnace is cleaned from soot, since it has an amazing ability to burn soot during its combustion, which remains in the furnace from other tree species. Therefore, it goes to the furnace of rural and regional baths, village houses, boiler houses. It is here that a woodcarver can find a churak for handicrafts of small sizes with blind carvings, and he will not be mistaken if he does this in advance, for future use. The fact is that aspen has another completely unexpected property - a strong increase in strength during exposure. With her lightness! The practice of our ancestors confirms what has been said, although it does not fully reveal all the reasons and secrets. It turns out that the walls of the huts built of aspen many years ago still amaze with their strength, whiteness and purity. The ax bounces off such wood, at best it sticks only shallowly. It is not for nothing that aspen is now used in villages for the manufacture of shelves and benches in baths, for facing their walls - it is hygienic, bright and clean, not afraid of moisture, does not warp or crack.
It also turns out that experienced villagers make handles and handles for agricultural implements, when the combination of lightness and strength, just from aspen, is worth its weight in gold. Only for this purpose it is necessary to cut down a young aspen in the spring, when the wood is filled with juice, and allow it to dry well in the shade - to dry out. Then it will become both light and strong, like a bone. Obviously, the aspen does not just dry out, some kind of polymerization occurs under the action of the components of its juice.
Oral legends say that they did the same with the harvesting of aspen logs for construction, only on each of them two or three grooves were made along the log on the bark so that the wood did not rot during drying, and the necessary juice was preserved in moderation.
For the same reasons, when drying an unskinned aspen trunk, some of the branches were sometimes left on its top, which pulled excess moisture out of the wood. To obtain the ideal aspen wood, its trunks were harvested along with the birth of a son in the family, and it dried up until the son was separated from the family and a house was built for him.
The best ax for a carpenter and joiner, as well as for a home craftsman, is also made from well-aged aspen. It is not only light, but it also does not bruise the hand, does not fill corns, which usually happens when working with a birch ax handle, polished and slipping out of hands (although it is better to buy an ax handle for an ax for chopping firewood from birch: its fracture strength does not depend slept from the time of year).
The woodworker, of course, will take into account these remarks about aspen - he will not miss the opportunity to stock up on aspen aged for years, but cut down in the spring. It turns out that, depending on the exposure time, the carver can use aspen of any hardness. The craft, made of soft aspen, acquires hardness over time, becoming not only resistant to splitting, but also to accidental dents from impacts.
Another property of aspen deserves attention, which is a vice in woodworking, but a godsend for a carver in house carving. This is the presence of a hollow and rot in the middle of large trunks. From them you will get a beautiful hollow carved column (Fig. 18), and you need to choose wood until an annular layer of the desired thickness is formed in a damp trunk and do not worry about drying the workpiece further: in this form it will not crack, but will only shrink more densely (see. section on wood drying). In this case, there is no need to achieve the strength of seasoned aspen.
In terms of shear strength, aspen is similar to linden and surpasses conifers in this, as well as poplar. And in terms of resistance to splitting from impact, it stands next to birch and ash, even ahead of beech, oak, maple, walnut, linden, coniferous trees. This indicates the viscosity of aspen.
The author also tested aspen aged for several years in carving (Fig. 19), it proved to be very good. As if the cross cut of the aspen turns out to be uneven, on appearance even loose. But as soon as it is chipped with a sharp knife, a clean, even cut is found. Such aspen is cut elastically, even tight, with effort, but the surface is good in all directions, it is perfectly ground and polished. If you grab a part of the trunk with a branch to a knot to prepare a craft, you can get a game of texture when finishing this place, not at all like aspen, but in warm colors, somewhat reminiscent even of Karelian birch. You just need to avoid the core of the aspen - in the craft it will be a loose dark brown strip.
Taking into account the indicated properties of aspen, it is especially advantageous to use it for crafts with blind carvings, for making complex, one-piece ornaments or such decorations as in Fig. 20.
Let us also mention the famous property of the silvery glow of aspen, which we observe on the roofs of the cathedrals of wooden architecture of the North of our country covered with plowshares (figured carved planks). The fact is that, as we have already mentioned, any wood that is not protected by varnishes or paints becomes gray and gradually collapses and rots. Unpainted aspen also turns gray, but unlike other types of wood, it is more resistant to weathering and, having acquired its silvery gray color with a metallic tint over several years (according to some reports, for 8-10 years), it retains it for many decades. . The use of the plowshare in the roof was reinforced not only by the interesting shape of the plowshare itself, but also by the successful use of the silvery color of aspen in it, playing on the relief of the roof and forming a whole range of transitions from light and sparkling illuminated places to dark gray, almost black, in shaded recesses. It must be assumed that for the plowshare the old masters used just high-quality wood blanks, i.e. cut down during the filling of the aspen with spring juice.
It is precisely this enchanting silvery glow, which cannot be compared with any decorative color, that the restored ancient hipped-roof church of the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery near Vologda, transported there from another place, possesses.
Note that the cold gray color combines favorably with red and burgundy. This is taken into account when restoring some churches and cathedrals made of red brick with gray lead or even painted roofs, slopes, and tents.
In appearance, aspen can only be confused with its related poplar (aspen has a second name - trembling poplar). She, like the white poplar, has a smooth greenish-gray bark, brownish at the base, cracked (in old trees). But the aspen leaf, in contrast to the poplar leaf, is ovoid (Fig. 2 inset).

Linden

This tree has a very soft wood, easily cut with a sharp knife (a dull knife will crumple some loose places). On the scale of hardness of 50 European and exotic wood species, linden is in first place (the softest). Therefore, it is widely used by professional carvers to make various crafts. If you have experience and a sharp tool, linden carving does not require much effort, the ability to cut significant amounts of wood with a knife often makes it possible to do carving with a small amount of tools. But linden, like aspen, is quite suitable for the manufacture of complex reliefs of deaf house carving.
Linden has a valuable feature - it is not enough to change shape. That is why drawing boards, models in the foundry, dishes, barrels for honey and other food, blanks in the production of hats are made from it.
But linden is famous in wood carving as a good material for geometric carving and for small crafts: shelves, coasters, frames (Fig. 21, 22). However, for solid works of relief carving and for sculpture, it is better not to use linden: it is easily vulnerable both from blows and from accidental disruption of the chisel, and the light tone of linden and its delicate texture do not allow repairing flaws. Of course, if a linden product is intended for subsequent painting, then this drawback can be easily eliminated.
Note that sometimes there is such a kind of linden, especially overdried, which is difficult to cut: the wood is wrinkled, and the tool quickly becomes dull.
If the carver decides to use an old drawing board for ornament (previously they were just made of linden), then it must be borne in mind that only areas where buttons were not pressed in can be suitable for carving with a transparent finish. The place from the tip of the button after processing will stand out as a spot on a light background of linden wood. Artificial sealing of such places with tinted putty will also not work: even a carefully matched putty color will be noticeable under certain lighting conditions. In general, the contact of any wood with metal leads to its darkening, and with prolonged contact of some types of wood with iron - to blackening (for example, oak).
Linden grows very slowly, but is a long-liver: small-leaved linden lives up to 800, and large-leaved linden lives up to 1000 years and reaches a diameter of 3-4 m. But large-leaved linden penetrates to the east of Europe only to Western Ukraine and Moldova. It blooms two weeks earlier than the small-leaved linden.
The most characteristic specific features lindens are as follows: flowering time is later than that of other trees, the fruits are smooth ball-shaped nuts 4-6 mm in diameter, the reverse side of the leaf has barbs of hairs in the corners of the veins (see Fig. 2 of the insert). Other features: the leaf is heart-shaped, pointed; blooms with small yellowish flowers with a characteristic pleasant (honey) smell; the bark is dark gray, furrowed.

Its wood is light, soft and viscous. It cuts very well, does not prick when carving, is not brittle, does not crack when dried. The end of the wood is processed well and can be used for the front side of the craft, for example, for making ornaments on flat end cuts from round blanks (Fig. 3 of the insert). Alder is especially good for small miniature crafts, such as intarsia, where inserts of yellow and brown tones are required (see fig. 38 of the insert). Viscous and pliable for processing in all directions, it is used in such critical products as musical instruments: in some types of accordions, all wooden parts are made only from alder. Alder burl is especially valuable for artistic crafts.
To enhance the yellow color of dry alder, it is useful to treat the treated surface, periodically wetting it with water, hold it in the sun, and then varnish it. It is even more effective to moisten the craft with the juice of the same, alder, wood.
Fresh cut white, i.e. ordinary, alder (in total, about 15 species of alder grow in our country) quickly turns yellow, up to orange tones, but then the bright yellow color fades, the wood turns gray, although the end remains quite yellow. Dry wood in a split and cross section is also not bright yellow, but under oil or drying oil it again acquires, although not as bright as in a fresh cut, but a fairly intense, uniform color that distinguishes it from other types of wood. Under the influence of oil, alder acquires a particularly rich yellow color from the butt, which can be used to tone out handicrafts made on end cuts, or such details that we spoke about when describing resinous pine knots. For example, a carver can use this property if he decides to make some kind of house carving decoration using the natural color of various types of wood and coating them with oil (fruits, flowers in a garland - Fig. 23). In this case, it will be useful to combine alder details with ocher, deep-colored details made from internal resinous pine knots. Suitable for this purpose are the heart part of the apple tree, and the pear imitated with crapp-lacquer (artistic paint) under mahogany, as well as the imitated alder itself (see the description of oak wood).
A characteristic negative property of alder is that it is very poorly drilled (the last place among the known ornamental species). Another disadvantage of this wood, uniform in texture and color in the total mass, is that it often contains core repetitions in the form of longitudinal narrow brown dashes, and sometimes in the form of darker wide inclusions.

On sunshine alder wood loses its orange hue in two to three months, its color becomes similar to the color of aged pine wood.
Species signs of alder are as follows. The fruits are woody cones on strong stems 14-18 mm in size, which is especially noticeable in winter. In black alder, the leaf is obovate or rounded, bluntly chopped off or even having a notch; the trunk (only in black alder) is elongated, straight. Black alder got its name from the black-brown color of the bark with cracks. Flowers with earrings in black alder are formed since autumn and bloom in March. In white (or gray) alder, flowering is two weeks earlier, its leaf is broadly oval, gray-green on the underside, the bark is smooth, gray in old age. White alder wood is slightly lighter and stronger than yellow-red black alder wood.

Pear

Its wood is especially delicate, fine-textured, very beautiful in small crafts and in combination with other types of wood (intarsia, mixed carving technique). It is useful for the carver to keep in reserve blocks and canvases of old T-series, once made from pear wood. When making carved wooden frames, the inner edging made of pear wood (share strips from the T-square) is very useful in combination with wood of many species, both light and dark tones. It is easy to do and looks noble. From a pear, for example, a twisted edging is cut out on the tabletop (see Fig. 32 of the insert).
A garden or wild pear can also be used in house carving, of course, it is better for highly artistic details. By the way, wild pear wood is better suited for carving, it is more viscous, almost does not crack.
The pear requires careful carving, with power techniques it gives chips, and not along the fibers and not in a straight line. With light tinting with krapplak (art paint), the pear successfully imitates mahogany, and with the help of
carcass or black nigrozine, it can be turned into an artificial ebony (ebony) tree.
The pear has another amazing feature - to resist splitting from impact, especially in the tangential direction. Of all the common ornamental wood species, only the most durable white locust wood is ahead of it in this. Even the wood of hornbeam, elm, birch, ash is inferior to pear in tangential splitting strength. Here, of course, its extraordinary viscosity affects.
In terms of resistance to splitting in the radial direction, the pear occupies an average place among the wood of other ornamental species.
The pear warps a little from atmospheric influences - a property that is also useful for house carving. It is no coincidence that earlier patterns, drawing t-height rails, frames of optical instruments were made from a pear.
Characteristic features of the species difference of an ordinary pear: in the leaves of a round-ovate shape, the petiole is longer than the leaf blade, the lateral short shoots end in a sharp spike.

Beech

This wood is an excellent ornamental material for interior decoration (Fig. 24). Beech is not suitable for house carving, as it is extremely hygroscopic and warps when wet. If, for example, the entire treated surface of a beech plank is wetted, it will bend until it completely loses its shape. So, for crafts, if there is a danger of moisture getting on it, you can use only well-oiled beech.
Beech can help out a novice carver when he does not have more suitable material in stock.
Beech has a fine-textured wood; it is easy to recognize it among other types of wood by short strokes on a longitudinal, especially tangential, cut. These strokes seem to have been applied evenly over the entire surface with a thin pen in brown ink. Beech does not have a core, the wood is yellowish-reddish, sometimes dark, similar to mahogany. Beech is characterized by the presence of wide core rays, which are clearly visible on the radial section in the form of curved spangles directed perpendicular to the wood fibers.
Beech cuts very well, although dry wood crumbles and pricks in fine carvings across the grain. This drawback can be reduced by lightly wetting the area being treated, but before wetting one place, the other should be allowed to dry, bearing in mind the hygroscopic nature of the wood.
Beech is a champion among other common ornamental wood species in terms of its ability to be well planed, processed on lathe, bend in a steamed state (in this it is second only to a nut). Resistant to splitting, but unstable to cracking. Subject to decay. In everyday life, it is used to make drawing rulers and squares, shoe lasts, parquet, furniture (especially cribs and playpens). These end-of-life items can be used for carving.
Characteristic features of the difference between the forest beech (or European): the bark is smooth silver-gray; leaves are simple, entire (i.e., without denticles along the edges), wavy; the fruit is trihedral, sharply ribbed nuts 1 cm in size are located two in a spinous cupule (Fig. 4 of the insert), when ripe they fall to the ground.
Beech grows in Western Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Crimea.

Poplar

Its wood is very soft, light, its density is even lower than that of linden and aspen. Therefore, poplar is used for the manufacture of wooden shovels, troughs, dugouts, plywood. It is a sound rock with white sapwood and a light brown heartwood. The softness of poplar is a disadvantage for carving - it sometimes wrinkles, and is not cut, especially when working with chisels, chisels, and is not resistant to dents from impacts. It is susceptible to rotting, fungal attack, unstable to splitting from impact. In the very last place among the most famous species is poplar in terms of the percentage of output of parts of good and excellent quality: when planing (21%), milling (3%), grinding (in this it is slightly better than only linden, which has an indicator of 17%). Worse than poplar, only alder is drilled (it has an indicator of 64%). The only advantage of poplar compared to other species is that it is easy to hammer a nail into it - the wood does not crack. In this case, only willow can compete with him. But screwing screws is easiest in poplar.
As can be seen from the above characteristics, it is better not to use poplar in carving, but to use it for such auxiliary parts, such as, for example, background boards on which an overlay thread is mounted with nails and screws, background shields for attaching an overhead thread and on which a contour ornament is cut out house carving.
Also in house carving, soft poplar can be used to make a hollow box of a carved decorative column or other large parts (see Fig. 477 and 479).
The most valuable and distinctive quality of poplar (albeit, some of its species) for a woodcarver is the unusually beautiful flat cuts of its butt. Such wood is used for the manufacture of veneer for facing expensive furniture. In house carving, this veneer can be used for panels and panels in a carved frame, well protected with transparent waterproof varnishes. At the very least, you should not pass by the butt or hemp of a felled poplar. It can go into making a large decorative vase, part of a column, etc., where large and smooth polished surfaces will bring out the ornate pattern of its texture.
By the appearance of the trunk and bark, white (or silver) poplar can be confused with its related aspen. But the white poplar has different leaves (see Fig. 3 inserts): not rounded, like those of aspen, but five-lobed. Black poplar differs markedly from aspen in its dark gray bark with deep longitudinal cracks and triangular or rhombic leaves wedge-shaped at the end.

Apple tree

The wood of the apple tree is heavy and dense. It has an almost brown heartwood, very different from the creamy sapwood. It has a number of undoubted specific properties useful for carving small interior crafts, as well as in intarsia, where the deep ocher tone of its sound part is appreciated. In house carving, it is used only in small crafts and in overhead carving. Performing large crafts from an apple tree is practically impossible, since it cracks badly when dried. Not only in a short, gnarled and knotty trunk, but also among the branches, it is difficult to find a whole area suitable for carving, especially since the apple tree itself or its branches are cut down when they die and often already rot. Rotten wood, if it is also dry, is cut with great difficulty. It is viscous, dense, sometimes crumpled under the blade, it is especially difficult to carve from the end and in the core part, where it sometimes crumbles into small crumbs and dust. It is necessary to adapt to the direction of the wood fibers with short sliding cuts of the knife. When cutting the ends of the board with a semicircular chisel, a rotational movement of the tool is performed while advancing the blade with the help of thumb left hand. In the direction of the fibers, the apple tree is cut much easier, and if you use the sliding movements of the knife, you can get shiny, even cuts. The apple tree is sawn very well: therefore, wherever possible, a saw should be used.
The inconvenience of working with an apple tree also lies in the fact that due to the great effort when using the tool, and this is due to the density and viscosity of the wood, it is often necessary to grind the tool. Sometimes the blade of a knife or chisel even crumbles.
Perhaps it is more interesting to use in the apple tree for carving the raw wood of its young knots, which for some reason are removed from the tree. It is completely homogeneous, without a core, white and dense. Perfectly cut with any tool and in any direction, very well sharpened, drilled. Therefore, it is used only for some overhead parts, especially round (also turned) or with a figured tip, jewelry (Fig. 25, a, c). True, it is necessary to take measures against cracking of the wood that dries up then in the finished part.
Let us give one example, where the young raw wood of an apple tree has undoubted advantages over other tree species. We are talking about the manufacture of chains from round rings, where rings made of raw apple wood are easily sharpened and do not crack when dried (they only decrease slightly in diameter). The ring of raw wood can be broken and, using the springy properties of wood, two others, whole, can be inserted into it, and then the gap can be glued again - this is how the chain is assembled. Of course, such rings from the end cuts of an apple tree, turned or made by hand with a circle cutter, can be used both for decorating house carvings and for carving interiors.
As for the use of the dark ocher core of the apple tree for the manufacture of artistic crafts from multi-colored natural wood (see "Oak"), here: the apple tree will take its rightful place.
Here are the species characteristics of a /wild apple tree: the bark is light brown, flaking off with scales; elliptical toothed leaf with four to five pairs of veins; petiole shorter than lamina.

Cherry

The wood of the cut down old cherry tree should be saved for use in woodcarving. It is hardly suitable for house carving, but it is quite suitable for interior crafts.
Cherry wood is dense (heavy) and viscous, but cuts well in all directions. The texture of an adult tree is surprisingly elegant. Its core is wide and dark in the form of darker and lighter rings, the sapwood is narrow, light, sometimes completely white, especially in knots and in young cherries. Drawings of wood of different trees are sometimes very different, but each time they are original and beautiful. Young shoots are often completely white and uniform, and perennial cherries in longitudinal, oblique and transverse sections have a clear striped texture in the form of large, wide dark (burgundy and brown) and light stripes. In the dark stripes of mature cherry wood, layers of overgrown bark and other anomalies are sometimes found. In a decorative sense, this is even interesting, but often leads to defects: in places of overgrown bark, cracks, delaminations, and chipping can form, which will require gluing and puttying. However, such corrections are not at all difficult to make, especially since they will be invisible on dark wood.

As a decorative wood in carvings for interior crafts, cherry is perhaps superior to whorl pine and juniper. From it, especially using oblique sections of young trunks, branches, it is good to make miniature crafts in the form of key chains, brooches, bracelets, i.e. crafts in which there should be a smooth polished surface (see Fig. 211). For relief carving, cherry wood is not very suitable because of the striped texture; in this it is similar to larch and pine.
In house carving, the use of cherry is limited, in particular, by the small size of the blanks. But using the decorative texture of cherry in small panels or rosettes on a flat (perhaps even convex) smooth and polished surface is perhaps tempting (Figure 26),
Distinctive species features of bird cherries: the bark is reddish-brown, peeling across with thin films; the leaves are ovate, serrated along the edges, on the petiole of the leaf there are two reddish glands, just like in bird cherry.

Oak

Oak wood can be attributed to the most suitable for house carving: hard to crush, strong enough to split, well planed, perfectly drilled and processed on a lathe, excellently polished, even bends in a steamed state (barrels are made from oak in everyday life). But the most valuable quality of oak in house carving is that it is a long-liver, is not afraid of moisture, and does not warp.
The main volume in oak wood is occupied by a yellowish-brown, sometimes dark brown core, which sharply turns into a narrow light yellow sapwood. The annual layers are clearly defined. A distinctive feature of the oak texture: wide flame-like core rays, clearly visible in the transverse and especially in the radial section. It is here that the beauty of oak is especially manifested. In the interior, oak is used for small and large crafts. It is curious that the carved wall panels made by Peter I were made of oak.
Oak wood cuts like any other hardwood. True, sometimes there are also such species of oak (there are about 450 of them in total), which are cut with great difficulty and greatly blunt the instrument. The disadvantages of oak wood include, firstly, porosity, therefore, before coating with a transparent varnish or paint, it is sometimes necessary to use a filler, and secondly, the risk of cracking during drying and very long natural drying (7-8 years).
In oak house carving, you can make any products and details: from complex high-relief (solid-cut and prefabricated) panels to small overhead and attached parts. And carved massive doors made of oak, covered with weather-resistant transparent lacquers, often decorate buildings, especially administrative ones. In practice, the reader can use (and then, obviously, on occasion) only small blanks of oak wood, from which it will be possible to design some kind of isolated ornament or applied carving. Of course, it is not advisable to paint oak; for this purpose, more accessible wood should be used.
When working with oak, it should be taken into account that it is very sensitive to vegetable oil (sunflower, linseed, natural drying oil, etc.) - stains often appear on its surface from oil. Oak wood must be coated with quick-drying, weather-resistant clear varnishes.
It is possible to make a carved composition from oak parts in combination with parts from wood of other species that are related to it in color (walnut, pear, apple, alder, beech), and maybe contrasting in color (ash, aspen, linden, young wood). apple and cherry trees). Imagine a column with twisted garlands, flowers and fruits, which can serve as a support for the entrance arch, gate (Fig. 27), or the same semi-columns instead of pilasters on the facade of the building, at its corners. But, of course, here we do not consider the reality of performing such crafts in terms of composition and possibilities. This is just an example of the use of oak wood. However, the author pursues another goal - to push the reader to an interesting, original idea. In this case, it will be most difficult to make from pine or larch (spruce, aspen are also suitable) the central pillar of a twisted column or the core of a semi-column so that it does not crack. For this purpose, the half-column rod should be made hollow, and for this you will have to make a special tool - an adze. The round column also needs to be hollow and will require a special tool to make it. Find oak blanks for garland leaves (at least old parquet) or small blanks for making fruits, flowers, acorns, etc. from apple, pear, alder, walnut, resinous knots of pine is not difficult at all. Even beech in the form of small balls (pistils of flowers) or birch in small volumes can be used here, although on condition that they are protected from getting wet.
For small embossed interior crafts, it is better not to recommend oak wood to a novice carver, because due to its hardness, porosity and oil fear, it is a lot of trouble.
Very good for intarsia and marquetry bog oak as "natural" ebony. But you can only find it by chance. In our middle lane Russian rivers often change their course, washing away either the right or the left bank. In such cases, it is possible to wash out from the shore the trees that once sunk during the rafting, including oak, which over time became stained. Moraine can be oak structures and details of sunken ships, oak piles that were once driven in, protecting the shore of a lake or river from erosion, even boards from old beer or wine barrels.
However, it is also possible to make oak stained artificially. It has been noticed that the place of the wood, which was hit by a bullet during the war, becomes very dark. By analogy, if you put oak veneer plates in a container for several weeks and sprinkle them with layers of wet iron filings, they will darken, and you will get an interesting color. Probably, the mention that has come down to us from ancient times is based on the same principle that in order to give an oak craft a dark color, it was placed in molten lead. We will talk about this in more detail in the "Burning. Firing" section.

Nut

Of the two types of nuts that grow in the CIS, the most common is walnut, or Caucasian. Its wood has all the properties necessary for carving. This valuable wood is used for the most exquisite small and openwork crafts (Fig. 28). Only with an abundance of walnut wood and the intention to make highly artistic carvings of exceptional quality can one use it for the exterior decoration of a house.
The wood of a freshly cut walnut is light, but in the product it darkens, becomes brownish with a reddish or yellowish tint, sometimes the tint is gray. Such overflows of color are explained by the fact that the wood of the core is darker (brownish-gray in color), gradually turning into a wide grayish-brown sapwood. Annual layers are wide, slightly sinuous, visible on all sections. Walnut wood is tender and soft, well planed, it is one of the best woods for drilling and turning, in addition, it bends well when steamed. In terms of resistance to splitting, it is between pear and oak.
The finest patterns can be carved from walnut both along the grain of the wood and across them, so it is especially readily used by carvers for geometric carving on caskets, vases, chiseled crafts, etc.
Let us draw the reader's attention to the fact that an alcoholic solution of the distillation products of crushed burnt walnut shells is a good brown stain, similar to natural, used for staining wood (see "Tinting"). A walnut burl with a reddish tint is considered the most valuable among all tree species (its mass reaches 1600 kg).
Another type of walnut of our country - Manchurian - has a beautiful silvery glow on the cut. Valuable black walnut grows in North America, got its name for the dark brown bark. The wood of some types of imported walnut in some places is completely dark, almost black. This walnut is used in the form of veneer for furniture finishing. In marquetry, walnut veneer is valued not only for the darkest color of natural wood (among veneers), but also for its extraordinary softness, which makes it easy to cut (especially wet) in all directions and with a knife, and even scissors, to make any small curly cuts from it, crooked branches and not be afraid that they will split. Walnut wood behaves in the same way in carving.
Characteristic species features of the walnut: like other types of walnut, the core in the branches is discontinuous; the leaves are unpaired-pinnate, composed of five to nine leaflets, the terminal leaflet (unpaired) is the largest.

Maple

This tree has many varieties. All breeds are mostly light colors, hard, heavy, non-nuclear. The texture of the wood is homogeneous, with small sparkles or with a characteristic ripple and silky sheen. Its color is white with a yellowish or pinkish tint. Sometimes there is a defect - a false nucleus of a greenish-gray color.

Maple is cut with effort, but the thread is clean, its surface is well processed. In this sense, light-colored maple wood is a good substitute for linden wood as a softer and more wrinkled material, or birch wood as a more prickly and weather-resistant material.
Sycamore maple (or false sycamore maple, white), which has a light, slightly yellowish wood, is most widely used in carving. Particularly valuable are its influxes (caps), called "peacock tree" or "bird's eye" for a spotted beautiful pattern with sparkles, for interesting stains in the texture with a strong interlacing of fibers and for a magnificent play of light and shadow. As well as Karelian birch, sycamore maple sags are used in the form of thin plywood for decorating even smooth surfaces.
In Canada, the sycamore maple is called sugar maple and is cultivated for the corresponding purpose, while in Europe it is bred only for decorative purposes. The place of its natural growth is the south of Europe (to Western Ukraine), cool and humid places of mountainous terrain.
From maple, as hard and viscous wood, they make blocks for planers and jointers, for soles for these and other tools, shoe blocks. In terms of resistance to indentation and chipping, maple, along with hornbeam and ash, is second only to acacia. Bigleaf maple wood, as well as black plum and walnut wood, produces 100% excellent quality parts when drilling. It is resistant to fungi and insects.
Characteristic species features of Norway maple (or sycamore), field maple (or paklen), also American (or ash-leaved) are: clawed leaf shape, double-winged fruits.

Ash

Ash wood is very dense, hard (heavy), sound. The heartwood is light brown, gradually turning into a wide yellowish-white sapwood. In cross section, light continuous wavy lines are visible along the rings. Ash wood is strong for splitting, but cracks when dried. However, successfully dried ash in handicrafts is resistant to cracking. Given its strength and ability to bend, ash is used to make skis, oars, tennis rackets, arcs, stair railings, tool handles, it is widely used in furniture production and joinery.
Ash wood is quite suitable for complex relief carving in both large and small crafts (Fig. 29), although it is cut with effort.
The bark of growing ash is dark gray, with longitudinal cracks.
Characteristic species features of ash: seeds with tongue-shaped wings hang in bunches among the branches, which is especially noticeable with the onset of winter; leaves pinnate with 9-13 oblong leaflets (see Fig. 4 inset); black buds in winter.

Rowan

Rowan wood has a pronounced dark core of reddish-brown color, which in the product, being covered with oil, becomes yellowish-brown or grayish-brown. The sapwood of the mountain ash is wide, reddish-white, the annual layers are clearly visible. The wood is dense (heavy), hard and very viscous, has the ability to resist shock well, therefore it is used for making handles for percussion instruments, in turning products. In general, in terms of mechanical properties, mountain ash stands next to beech, slightly inferior to it. Rowan wood has a characteristic sheen, rather a glow, which is sometimes used in decor. As an ornamental material, this wood has not found application, and the reason for this, obviously, is its viscosity, which sometimes turns into the ability to bend, so blanks or parts can be deformed.
A wood carver may be interested in the mountain ash, which is unusual for wood (in general) in the color of its heart part, which after oil treatment becomes more like a stone with specks and dark stripes from growth rings, with a changing grayish glow-glow when turning crafts. This means that in house carving, mountain ash can be useful in combination with other multi-colored woods, such as apple, alder, pear, beech, walnut, resinous pine knots (see "Oak"). Rowan can be successfully used for interior decoration. It is interesting to use the heart part of the mountain ash for the manufacture of women's breast jewelry.

Hornbeam

Its wood is heavy and hard, in terms of physical and mechanical properties it is similar to ash, but without core, grayish-white with a greenish tint. The annual layers are wavy, of uneven width, visible only at the end. It cracks a lot and warps when it dries. The extraordinary hardness of the hornbeam, resistance to abrasion and splitting from impact (only white locust is ahead of it in this) make it possible to use hornbeam for the manufacture of gears, screws, axles, shoe nails and tool handles. The density of the hornbeam is 2.1 times higher than the density of, for example, fir, and the resistance to splitting is 3 times greater than that of fir.
The hornbeam is suitable for carving, but it is cut with great difficulty. Good imitation of ebony.
Characteristic species features of the common hornbeam: the trunk is grooved (i.e. not round, but ribbed), the bark is smooth green-gray; the fruit is a slightly flattened ribbed nut, sitting at the base of an overgrown three-lobed leaf cup (see Fig. 4 of the insert). In the CIS (in Belarus, in Ukraine, in Russia - in the Far East), five types of hornbeam grow.

Elm

Elm wood is heartwood with a gradual transition from a light brown heartwood to a wide yellowish-white sapwood. The properties of elm are similar to those of ash. It also has the ability to bend well, so it is used to make wheel rims, sled skids, clamping screws in workbenches, clamps and other carpentry crafts. The ability of the elm to bend (and taking into account its light tone) should also be used by a woodcarver, for example, for making curved contours and framing in decorative panels, house carving ornaments (see Fig. 253). By the way, we note that young shoots of bird cherry are also well suited for this purpose.
Characteristic species characteristics of smooth (or common) elm: leaves are ovate, asymmetrical at the base, smooth above, roughly twice serrated along the edges; the flowers hang in a bunch on long pedicels (see Fig. 4 inset).

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus wood is one of the best for carving, but mainly residents of the south of our country can use it. Different types of eucalyptus (about 30) grow mainly on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Crimea, as well as in Azerbaijan. The wood is dense (heavy), often curly, superior in strength to oak and black walnut, but cuts well in all directions. Due to the hardness and the presence of essential oils, dry wood is not touched by the wood borer and it almost does not rot. The large thickness of the tree allows you to design almost any craft (Fig. 30-32), which is especially valuable for house carving. Thick trunks are not uncommon in eucalyptus thickets, as this tree grows quickly, draws moisture strongly and is even used to drain marshy places.
The wood varies from very light or light ocher to deep red in various trunks and subspecies. Sometimes in one trunk there are strong deviations in color from light on the outside (sapwood) to dark in the core. There is also a color difference due to the graininess of the wood. After oil treatment and exposure to the sun, the tone of the wood is compared, but the desired play of color transitions remains.
Eucalyptus wood is so fine-grained and dense that it allows cutting even a sculpture of a head or a mask from the end of the trunk (see Fig. 7 of the insert). The texture of the wood on the end is the most uniform, and its tone is rich and deep, and it is much easier to repair cracks on the end with inconspicuous inserts.

The rich tone of eucalyptus wood from the end is especially beautiful in dark red species.
As a generalization of the above characteristics, let's draw the reader's attention once again to the fact that in terms of all properties, red eucalyptus can be put in first place among the "elite" species for carving: in appearance it looks like mahogany with a deep red-brown tone; allows you to choose an interesting texture with large stains for smooth polished surfaces, use a uniform surface of a large area at the end for mask sculpture; cut a large-sized craft from a whole piece of wood (see Fig. 31 of the insert); use dark wood for decorative contrasting finishes in combination with light wood, etc. And the main thing is that eucalyptus is good, although tight, cut in all directions, does not give chips and is not too susceptible to injury when the tool comes off (Fig. 33 and 34).
These comments will be taken into account by the home master and, on occasion, will not miss the opportunity to stock up on such wood.
Eucalyptus is also grown at home as a remedy for flies and mosquitoes, as well as to maintain air sterility.
Typical species features of eucalyptus: the shape of leaves and fruits.

Lemon Tree

Lemon tree wood is a very fertile material, it is completely uniform in color and texture, like birch or linden wood, but after aging, the lemon tree craft acquires a noble ocher-yellow tone and, with good processing, becomes similar to amber.
One has only to wonder why the lemon tree is so rarely found in carvings. Obviously, this is due not only to ignorance of its favorable properties for carving, but also to a misunderstanding that wood crafts with a natural color are, in all aesthetic indicators, higher than stained or tinted. And in tinted crafts, the quality and type of wood do not play a role: it would be a tree without knots and cracks, and the color can be made any (of course, for insertion). Only in fiction can one sometimes find a description of the exquisite furniture of the past with lemon wood trim.
It is clear that when talking about lemon wood, one has to keep in mind a small amount of it for intarsia or inlay. But, perhaps, the carver will have the opportunity to purchase this wood in the places of growth, where this tree is periodically cut down. This means providing yourself with the most valuable material for exquisite carvings (see Fig. 25, b, Fig. 35-38).
The diameter of the trunk of a lemon tree does not exceed 20 cm, and with such a thickness, it is not uncommon to introduce a mass of gray wood unsuitable for carving. Yellow, brightly saturated tone most often have branches from the trunk and young trees. Therefore, when designing crafts using lemon tree wood, you can only rely on small parts from it or on installation from individual parts (see Fig. 22 of the insert).
The tree is very dense, viscous, although it is easily pricked along the fibers. The color of freshly cut wood is light with a yellowish tinge. It cuts easily across and obliquely. After finishing with oil or varnish, it turns yellow, and the end sections (across the fibers) become more saturated yellow, which can be used to vary the color in the installation of carved products and in intarsia. So, in the above-mentioned oval frame, grape bunches are made of a lemon tree, directed towards the viewer, and the leaves are made along the fibers. This gives the frame an interesting combination of yellow tones. In the grape clusters themselves, different colors of individual sections of wood (taken from one and different trunks) are used - from yellow to almost orange at the ends of the clusters. Although over time the orange hues partially changed and became a deep golden ocher, the play of color still remained interesting.
It should be noted that the color of the olive tree is very close to the deepest tones of the lemon tree and they can be used in pairs: this will noticeably enrich color scheme crafts.
Among marketers, veneer made of laminated brittle wood with bright yellow stripes is widely used. It has the brightest yellow color of the known wood species, for which it received the name in the practice of lemon or "lemon" marquetry. Sometimes even in the literature it is simply called a lemon tree. Note that there is nothing in common between the indicated veneer and a real lemon tree.
The lemon tree with gray wood in the carving looks ineffective, has a dirty, moldy look, and brings dissonance into the overall ensemble.
By the appearance of the growing tree and by the wood, the lemon tree can be confused with the orange tree. They are similar in properties and thread.

Juniper

Juniper wood is used for small crafts, has a beautiful, reddish, sometimes striped and wavy texture, is somewhat darker than spruce and pine, with a high density (1.5 times greater than the density of cedar wood), homogeneous, flexible, not hard, convenient for carving, not swells when wet and almost does not decrease in volume when dried. These properties, combined with a pleasant smell, put it in an advantageous position compared to other types of wood when making beads, brooches, inlaid bracelets, combs and hairpins, teapot coasters (when heated from a teapot, the wood begins to smell pleasant). By the way, the smell of juniper is very persistent; products made from it, which have lain underground for millennia, retain their characteristic smell.
The texture of juniper is especially beautiful in cross section. Therefore, with steamed (in hot water for 4-5 hours) cross-cut plates, some craftsmen paste over wooden products or simply use such plates to make, for example, caskets.
Juniper as a plant has many other useful properties and is under protection. You can cut down for crafts only dry branches and roots. From juniper, as well as from cedar, pencils are made.

Karelian birch

Karelian birch is similar in texture to birch burl, and in some places even resembles marble. It is also warmer (ocher) than ordinary birch in general tone. When examining individual sheets of Karelian birch veneer, one is amazed at the extraordinary variety of colors and patterns. In some places, the fibers of the wood are directed along the trunk, but always with small, but curved spots, sparkles are scattered throughout the field. Gradually, the overall tone thickens, the layers of wood and fibers twist, intertwine, more light sparkles and contrasting dark yellow spots and blotches appear, which are circled with a brown border - elongated irregularly shaped leaves, brackets, checkmarks, specks, sometimes come across dots, too brown, and in some places almost black.
Sometimes the texture resembles a stormy sea with waves and some objects swaying on them, and then suddenly a mountain landscape appears with a rockfall (dark blotches). If a marketer or carver wants to veneer a countertop or even a box with Karelian birch veneer, he will have to pick up many pieces in order to achieve uniformity of the field, joining the pattern and texture of the fibers, but still, such a smooth transition, as in nature, will not work. This means that it is better to mount the tabletop field in pieces separated by some kind of ornament, lines (see Fig. 32 of the insert), or very skillfully join pieces of veneer along curved lines.
This precious wood cannot be cut, converted into shavings, into sawdust. It is cut only by planing on veneer in a steamed state.
Karelian birch is a state value, it is not only under protection, but also under careful observation and study. At the beginning of this century, from the last surviving place of growth of the Karelian birch - from Belarus - they exported up to a hundred more wagonloads of selected wood per year. Before the war there were only two artificial plantations, during the war they perished. And now every Karelian birch tree is registered.
We cite these data so that the carver does not raise his hand to cut down the Karelian birch, but to take measures for its reproduction is both a patriotic and spiritual duty. So let's give some more information. Until now, science is not clear what the Karelian birch is: is it a tree with a wood disease such as burl, or is it a species of birch. It grows (or rather grew) wherever birch grows in general, and not only in our country, but also in other European countries. The name "Karelian" is purely conditional. With self-pollination, not all birches in the offspring grow Karelian, a fourth of them become ordinary birches. When crossed with other types of ordinary birches, the Karelian birch reproduces from 20 to 60% of its own kind. The most reliable way of propagation is the grafting of cuttings from a young Karelian birch (with pronounced features) onto young birches of ordinary species.
Outwardly, it is difficult to distinguish Karelian birch from ordinary birch. Approximate signs will be as follows. It grows scattered, sometimes in groups, but interspersed with other birches, curly, low. The ornamental part of the trunk in blanks ranges from 90 cm to 3 m. The diameter of the trunk is rarely more than 30 cm. The trunk has a noticeable thickening from below, bumps, tubercles, knots on the bark. To accurately determine the type of tree, but only in last resort, you should cut out a piece of bark the size of a tourist badge, remove it and hold it so that light does not fall on its inner surface, especially sunny. Quickly examine the surface of the exposed trunk: in Karelian birch it is not smooth, but in tubercles, wrinkles, grooves, often directed along the trunk. Then insert a piece of bark back, press it well and seal it with a plaster, and even better tie it. It will settle down in two or three weeks.
So, speaking of Karelian birch as a material for a carver or marketer, we mean the veneer of this wood. Having wetted or steamed it, it is possible to veneer not only a flat, but also a cylindrical and conical surface of slight curvature. In combination with a birch burl, the carver can, for example, veneer a vase if he figures out how to close the joining seams - using decorative inserts or false carvings from other wood. It is clear that the cap should be used in those places of the vase where it is difficult to make facing with a flat sheet of veneer (on the so-called non-developable surfaces). Let's not lose sight of the combination of Karelian birch veneer with a butt sometimes similar to it in wood pattern - the root knot of a birch.
In conclusion, we note that in the future, with the acquisition of experience, the cutter can use Karelian birch veneer for facing non-developable surfaces (see Fig. 38 of the insert).

The Red tree

It has dozens of varieties. It got its name from the acajou tree, or mahogany tree. In our country, it is also called "svitenevo tree", it is imported from tropical countries. "Mahogany" (or "mahogany") includes a wide variety of wood species. I show how the most valuable variety of mahogany breeds is used for artistic and decorative crafts (Fig. 6 of the insert). Its wood has a light gray, sometimes greenish sapwood and a red heartwood. On the treated surface, sparks (small parallel strokes) are visible, grouped into dark and light stripes. But if you look from the opposite side, the light strip turns into a dark one and vice versa. This is how the shine of wood manifests itself: the tree sparkles, lives. The same thing happens if you change the direction of the lighting.

This effect should be taken into account, since in a small mask or figurine it can be negative (the stripes will give spots on the face and body), and in a larger mask it can be positive: when the viewer moves, the mask seems to come to life due to the play of tones.
For carving, the tree is quite complex - it is not viscous, sometimes porous and brittle.
After finishing, a product made of any mahogany will definitely darken over time (although the lower grades of a pale red color do not darken and sometimes even brighten). No varnish will protect him from this process. This property should be especially taken into account by those who are engaged in marquetry or intarsia.
Therefore, when finishing a finished mahogany carving, it is better to cover it with vegetable oil (linseed, sunflower, saffia) and expose it to the sun for one or two days. Under the influence of atmospheric oxygen and light, the tree will darken intensively, acquire a deep dark red tone. Only after that it can be finished completely, as will be discussed later.

rosewood

There are various types of rosewood with wood of various shades, but they are all very beautiful, decorative; especially popular is a dark brown wood with a violet tint and with unexpected transitions from red and dark red tones to completely black. In a flat cut and when polished, rosewood reveals a striped pattern associated with the direction of the layers and grains of the wood. But when carving, it makes no sense to take into account the direction of the fibers: in appearance in a chip and in structure, wood resembles anthracite coal - it also crumbles with chips in small pieces and crumbs in any direction. It has to be cut with a metal saw both in the transverse and in the longitudinal direction.
It is advantageous to use rosewood for contrast with other types of wood (intarsia, marquetry), as well as for small crafts with smooth, polished surfaces (see Fig. 214). It is well polished from the end with the formation of an almost uniform dark wood pattern.
There were cases when rosewood caused allergies when working with it (irritation and itching of the skin, swelling of the face).
Rosewood - wood South America and East India. It is also called violet tree or jacaranda.

Caps

A cap is not a tree, it is a painful growth on it. It appears on many trees and weighs more than 1 ton. In section, it resembles marble. The pattern of twisted fibers, curls and knots (a consequence of the accumulation of dormant buds) is always very beautiful on a smooth polished cut surface, it is individual for each cap. Especially beautiful is the burl of those trees that have a striped wood texture or contrasting combinations of colors, such as pine (rare).
As a material for carving, cap is of no interest: a carved (indented) surface and a spotted, striped texture will interfere with each other. On the one hand, the relief of the carving will not look, on the other hand, the pattern of stains, weaves and the cap itself will disappear. The author of the book made an attempt to carve a sculptural piece (see Fig. 12 of the insert) from a birch burl. Even for the face of an old man, the cap turned out to be too spotty material, dark blotches and dimples had to be tinted with mastic.
Burl is very good for crafts with a flat and slightly relief surface, but, like Karelian birch, it is mainly used to make peeled veneer for finishing wooden products. Its wood is very valuable and it is not advisable to convert it into shavings and sawdust. Only from small pieces of burl, which cannot be put on veneer, they make small crafts - bracelets, beads, brooches, chess, cups, desktop stationery.
A wood carver may be interested in a burl for making such a craft, where its smooth surface is combined with the relief surface of carvings from other wood and, obviously, in contrasting color: for example, birch burl with mahogany or dark walnut (imported), walnut burl with birch, linden. Probably, a table or wall plate made of burl with slotted carvings along the edges and even better with a dark-toned set of marquetry at the bottom of the plate will also look good (see a similar craft, lined with Karelian birch, in Fig. 38 of the insert).
It is unacceptable to cut down a tree because of a burl. It is also impractical to cut the burl from the tree if it goes around the trunk, since in this case the best part of the burl for carving will be damaged, and the burl itself will be dissected. Only in those cases when it is possible to cut off the entire cap, it makes sense to carefully separate it as a painful growth. Such actions will not harm an adult tree.
Cap can be purchased from logging or sawmilling, where it can end up in waste. At logging, the so-called kapokoren sometimes comes across, i.e. outgrowth on the root node (practically on the stump of a sawn tree).
It should be noted that the cut of poplar or birch at the place of transition of the trunk to the roots, even without being hit by a burl, often has a very interesting twist. The wood of the interweaving of the branching fibers of the roots is combined here with the straight and calm wood of the trunk, which can sometimes lead to an unexpected decision: texture stains and sag are used for a flat surface, and straight-grained wood is used for carving (carved, high relief, sculptural). The use of such wood for the manufacture of bowls and vases with iridescent, as if mother-of-pearl, surface has become a tradition of many wood carvers. Of course, it is even more interesting to use a caproot for this purpose.
It is better to store the cap in a dark place, as it can crack in the open air from rain and sun. It is better for a home wood craftsman to cut the cap into plates or small blanks for intended crafts. In order to speed up subsequent drying, as well as to give more high quality(viscosity, golden color, non-cracking), burl blanks should be boiled for 5-6 hours. In addition, craftsmen of past years, after evaporating the burl blanks, kept them in a hot furnace placed in cast iron interspersed with layers of wet birch sawdust during the day . This operation was repeated three or four times until a golden burl was obtained. In this regard, we note that we have already mentioned the use of tree sap to tint other wood and to enhance our own color (see "Pine and Spruce", "Alder", "Walnut").

boxwood

It is an evergreen shrub type plant. southern countries. Two types of boxwood (out of 40 known) grow in Transcaucasia. Boxwood is famous for its hardness and durability. As an ornamental wood, it is primarily used in woodcarving (Fig. 39). It is cut with difficulty equally in all directions, and not every tool is able to "take" it. Therefore, some masters use dental burs and special cutters on a flexible hose rotating from the motor (cable in a flexible tube) to process it. But due to the valuable properties of boxwood, it is not advisable to process it in this way - the surface is unclean, with ruts and depressions, which significantly spoils the product from such a fine material.
The color of boxwood is light yellow-ocher. According to the author, this is the best wood for sculpting the mask (face) of a child and a woman, where a fine transfer of form is required and where inclusions that are foreign in color or texture are contraindicated, especially since the color of boxwood is closest to flesh.
Boxwood is polished very well, sharpened just as well, and therefore is widely used for small exquisite chiseled crafts.
Due to its strength and uniformity of wood in all directions, some musical instruments (for example, flutes), weaving shuttles, engraving boards, buttons are made from it.

Plant.
Buds are felt-fluffy. The leaves are large, pinnate, about 11-23 almost sessile, oblong, sharply serrate, hairy in youth, then almost bare leaves. Numerous white flowers are collected in dense corymbose inflorescences that appear at the ends of the branches. Inflorescences emit a strong specific smell. The flower has a perianth perianth of calyx and corolla, many stamens and a pistil with three columns. The fruit is a spherical or oval bright red juicy apple with small seeds. The seeds are rounded along the edge. Fruits contain about 8% sugars (fructose, glucose, sorbose, sucrose), as well as organic acids, including sorbic acid, which has an antiseptic effect, trace elements and vitamins - ascorbic acid (up to 200 mg%), vitamin P, carotene and glycosides ( including amygdalin)
In total, there are over 100 species of mountain ash, of which about a third grows in Russia and neighboring countries. Rowan is widely distributed throughout Europe, throughout Asia and North America.

Wood.
Mountain ash is a sound breed. Pinkish-white sapwood at the butt end surrounds the red-brown heartwood in a wide ring. Each annual ring consists of early light and late dark wood. Therefore, the annual layers are clearly distinguishable in all sections. The core rays of mountain ash are very narrow: on the tangential and transverse sections they are not visible at all to the naked eye, and on the radial they are barely noticeable. There are core repetitions in the wood in the form of brown dashes and shapeless spots. In terms of physical and mechanical properties, rowan wood is close to an apple tree. It is also heavy, strong, very hard and dries out a lot. Drying freshly cut wood is not easy. With careless and too hasty drying, the wood is covered with many large and small cracks.
It is much more reliable to use the wood of rowan dried on the vine. Rowan wood stains well, accepts mordant. After grinding and polishing, it acquires a beautiful silky sheen. Dense and uniform, it is cleanly processed by cutting tools and is an excellent material for turning and carving. Moreover, the thread can be made very thin. The details of some machines - coils, blocks, spools of spinning wheels, shuttles of looms - the old masters preferred to make from durable rowan wood.
For artistic and decorative works, the wood of rowan roots is of great value. Durable, with an expressive wiry texture, it is especially good for carving and slotting. With great skill, bowls, ladles, spoons and ladles were hollowed and cut from the root wood of mountain ash. The rowan root is a wonderful material for decorative chamber sculpture.

Rowan - perhaps one of the most common trees in Russia. With confidence, you can find out that every inhabitant of our country knows exactly what a mountain ash looks like. Older generations remember with pleasure the taste of sour berries, which become sweeter in the cold - a small part of childhood that remains with a person for life.

This plant can grow almost anywhere. This is explained by her unpretentiousness and endurance. That is why it is most often chosen for decorating a personal plot. Rowan can become really important landscape design element country house. Its advantages lie not only in its endurance, as mentioned above. The appearance of the rowan tree is pleasing to the eye and attracts attention, which can look advantageous against the background of monotonous decorative and complex decorations.

This short article, as you could already understand from the previous paragraphs, will be entirely devoted to mountain ash. This well-known plant is of particular interest not only to specialists in the field of botany, but also to the ordinary reader, drawn to interesting information about everything at once.

Rowan - description. Rowan characteristic

To get started, you just need to describe the mountain ash, as well as answer a very common question that applies to this plant. Many users on the network ask the question "Is the mountain ash a shrub or a tree?". If you think about it, then this question is very logical, if you look closely at the mountain ash, you really won’t understand right away whether it’s a bush or still a tree, its structure fits both signs, so it can be both bush and in the form of a tree.

Finding the answer to this question is very easy. It is enough just to enter “Wikipedia mountain ash” into the search engine line, and all the information about it will be posted in the very first paragraph of the article on this comprehensive resource. The fact is that this plant itself is a tree, but at the same time there are also shrub varieties. Tree family - Pink, root system well developed, reaches 2 meters in depth and extends to 5 meters in diameter, the type of fruit is spherical, the height of the tree usually reaches 6-15 meters. Rowan looks like a not very tall tree with a straight trunk, as well as a crown, the shape of which can be described as ovoid.

Rowan trees are distinguished by the smoothness of the bark, as well as a grayish color. . Leaves can be of different shapes: oblong-lacent or simply oblong, alternate, also called imparipinnate. This plant is indeed a very beautiful tree, which determines its popularity as an ornamental plant. The old leaves of this shrub are not pubescent, unlike the young ones.

Rowan is especially beautiful during its flowering, when it begins to bloom, and also looks very pretty in autumn. The flowers are collected in a kind of panicle, they can be white or have a pinkish tint. The smell, however, of rowan flowers is not very pleasant. This plant bears fruit annually, but do not be naive to believe that it is possible to harvest the “harvest” within the specified time frame. About once every three years, the plant gives a full "harvest".

Rowan tree usually blooms in late spring or early summer. Wherein fruit development begins in autumn in September. Gradually, from white berries, they turn into red or black fruits. Of course, maybe the berries of a mountain ash tree cannot stand on a par with berries of cherries or grapes, if we compare their taste, but in terms of usefulness they may well argue with them.

Some features of growing

When planting any plant, be sure to first learn about the features of its cultivation. This will avoid possible subsequent death of the plant as a result of improper care.

• In the case of mountain ash, you can not worry when planting it. As already mentioned above in this article, this plant is very, very hardy and unpretentious, and feels quite comfortable on almost any soil. Also, do not forget about another important quality of this plant - frost resistance. This ability allows the mountain ash to endure even the most severe winters quite calmly. In addition, the plant boasts resistance even to high temperatures.
• This plant is ideal for lovers of a beautiful landscape who prefer to put a lot of effort into caring for plants, as it requires little to no constant, regular watering. True, in the summer it is recommended to periodically moisten the soil under the rowan tree. Also, thanks to its strong and developed root system, the plant will not fall in front of strong gusts of wind. It should also be noted that the plant is resistant to highly polluted city air.

The value of mountain ash as an ornamental plant

It has already been said above that mountain ash is often used by landscape designers as an ornamental plant. Moreover, both rowan trees and shrubs are used. Rowan popularity used for decoration, due to a number of reasons. First of all, be sure to indicate the beauty of the crown of a mountain ash tree or shrub, which distinguishes with density and compactness. Of course, plants with a “weeping” crown shape are most often used.

It is also worth noting the beauty of rowan leaves, which are distinguished by their unusual shape. In addition, in autumn the leaves become orange-reddish tint. In addition, bright rowan berries, which are able to retain their beautiful color even until late winter., Rowan leaves are also very good for autumn herbarium.

Types of mountain ash

Many people do not even know that there are different types of mountain ash. Most often you can stumble upon rowan species with red berries, but there are also chokeberry varieties mountain ash (photo), which are highlighted as a separate species. It is worth noting that the fruits of both types, both red and black, have medicinal properties. The most common type of this plant is the mountain ash. In total there are more than forty varieties.

Serious work on the selection of rowan species was carried out at one time by the famous Russian scientist Michurin. The scientist brought out several new hybrids of this plant. It was thanks to his research that chokeberry which has already been mentioned in this article. It, in principle, is very similar to the common rowan species, but does not belong to this species. In fact, this is a separate hybrid plant, which has its own name - chokeberry.

medicinal properties

The fruits of mountain ash have long been used by people as a folk remedy. Rowan berries contain various vitamins, as well as glucose, fructose and sorbic acid. All these components very beneficial to the body especially weakened by disease.

• Some ailments should be identified, in which decoctions from useful rowan berries are sometimes used. It is recommended to drink such decoctions for hypertensive patients and people suffering from atherosclerosis. Also this folk remedy can help with disorders of the heart, kidneys and liver. Rowan juice can be used in cases where a person has gastritis, hemorrhoids or low acidity. One of the useful components of the fruits of this plant - sorbic acid - can become a serious assistant in the fight against dysentery bacillus and staphylococcus aureus.
• The berries of the plant are sometimes used as a food preservative and also for water purification. Our ancestors even had a certain way of purifying water - at night, a branch of this plant was simply thrown into a bucket of water. This method not only allowed the water to remain fresh for a long time, but also gave a pleasant aftertaste.

The meaning of rowan in ancient rites

The importance of mountain ash was noted in antiquity. Above, cases of using the plant as a decorative ornament and medicine have already been indicated, but even in pre-Christian Rus', in some regions, people used mountain ash for certain rituals. For example, there were wedding ceremonies, which involved lining shoes with rowan leaves for the newlyweds, as well as rowan berries were put in their pockets.

The specified plant in this case used as a symbol of protection against the possible intrigues of witches and sorcerers. Also rowan trees for the same purpose were planted next to the house. Rowan was also used to expel spirits that brought various diseases and ailments to people.

In addition, the value and significance of mountain ash among the people emphasizes the existence various legends that have been passed down through generations by word of mouth. For example, you can point out an interesting and original legend that tries to explain the presence of bitterness in the taste of rowan fruits. According to this legend, the mountain ash was created by the devil himself from Eve's tears when she was expelled from paradise.

It was believed that this served as a kind of symbol of Satan's victory over humanity. But after the Creator discovered the similarity of the rowan tree leaves with the cross, he took it from the devil's garden. This could not please the devil, who later set out to destroy his own creation so that it would not go to the Creator and people. But he did not succeed in doing this, only as a result of an attempt rowan berries have become bitter.

The decorative and medicinal properties of mountain ash, which have already been mentioned in this article, are not the only advantages of this beautiful plant. The qualities and properties of the wood of this tree make it possible to make various joinery products from it. Here it is necessary to mention the main advantages of rowan wood- strength and elasticity.

As already mentioned, there are quite a few different varieties of this plant, but one of them boasts rather large fruits. Berries of large-fruited mountain ash really large compared to the fruits of other varieties of this plant. One berry can weigh twenty grams, and have a diameter of three and a half centimeters. The fruits of large-fruited mountain ash are very tasty. At the same time, this variety is not as unpretentious as other types of mountain ash. She does not really like winter, so she needs special care. An interesting fact about the large-fruited mountain ash is that it was bred in the Crimea by the Crimean Tatars.

Rowan with sweet fruits instead of bitter, it was first found in the village of Nevezhino, Vladimir Region. From there it spread throughout Russia. It was this variety with sweet fruits, called Nevezhensky, that was used at the beginning of the twentieth century for the mass production of tincture, which was called Nezhinskaya.

rowan picture

Mountain ash is a sound rock with a wide reddish-white sapwood and a red-brown heartwood. Annual layers are clearly visible in all sections. Vessels are small. The core rays are poorly visible on the radial section. The texture is smooth, soft, thin. Wood has a characteristic brilliance and high uniformity (uniform distribution of mechanical tissues across the width of the annual layer). The number of annual layers per 1 cm of the cross section for mountain ash (distribution area - the Central regions of the European part of Russia), as a rule, averages 6.6.
Most of the mountain ash species belong to medium-density species (750 kg/m3), along with oak, beech and a number of other hardwoods. The average density value (moisture content 12%) behaves like most hardwoods, with the only difference being that it is less prone to cracking and warping than, for example, beech and, especially, oak.
Rowan wood is heavy, strong, very hard and dries out a lot. Therefore, it is not so easy to dry freshly cut mountain ash. Careless and too hasty drying leads to many large and small cracks. In terms of strength, mountain ash wood is not inferior to popular commercial hardwoods.
The wood of most types of mountain ash is well processed by cutting, excellently ground and polished. Due to its pleasant color, gloss and strength, it is often used to imitate precious woods, which is also facilitated by a good ability to perceive stains and stains. The stability of rowan products is rated as good. It adheres well and holds fasteners (nails and screws). The ability to bend is somewhat worse than that of beech.
Products from mountain ash wood are well painted, accept mordant. After grinding and polishing, they acquire a beautiful silky sheen. Dense and uniform, it is cleanly processed by cutting tools and is an excellent material for turning and carving. Moreover, the thread can be made very thin. Wood is very flexible. Thin branches of mountain ash have long been used for weaving, and thicker ones - for the manufacture of hoops, rods.
For artistic and decorative works, the wood of rowan roots is of great value. Durable, with an expressive wavy texture. Bowls, ladles, spoons and ladles were hollowed out and cut from it, a wonderful material for decorative chamber sculpture.
Rowan wood is a valuable ornamental material. In joinery and furniture products, it can be used without restrictions and at the same time compete with oak and beech wood, since parts from it have greater dimensional stability than oak and beech. At present, craftsmen clearly underestimate this breed, whereas earlier it was highly valued for its strength, toughness, elasticity and appearance. In Europe (especially in Germany) in the 19th century, mountain ash was widely used by coachmakers, carpenters, turners and carvers to imitate expensive and scarce tropical woods. Gunsmiths and coopers did not neglect it either. They still make excellent handles for hand tools, dishes and various household utensils from it.
Currently, interest in mountain ash is reviving again. First of all, furniture manufacturers and interior designers turn to it in connection with the emergence of effective technologies for the production of glued wood (furniture panels, etc.).
The structure of mountain ash wood and its properties make it possible to use thinner and other non-commercial wood of this species in the production of high-quality cellulose, excellent firewood and raw materials for charcoal are obtained from it.

The details of some machines - coils, blocks, spools of spinning wheels, shuttles of looms - the old masters preferred to make from durable rowan wood.
Rowan is hard and durable, and, due to its viscosity, it has one important property - the ability to hold blows well - what is needed for mallets and chisel handles.
In the old days, wagon bodies, armchairs, and baby strollers were woven from rowan shoots. In addition to the fact that rowan wood is very elastic, it is durable and has a beautiful texture, it is well polished, therefore it is used for various crafts, musical instruments, and furniture. Ax handles, handles of various tools are also made from it. There is no better material for making handles for sledgehammers and hammers. The unique quality of this wood is fire resistance - it hardly catches fire, therefore, in the old days, rubbing parts were made from it - sliders, rollers, teeth, shuttles, bushings, axles.

Many masters undeservedly do not pay their attention to this beautiful tree. So I, for the time being, passed by the mountain ash, until one day I noticed a beautiful, striped core on a broken mountain ash. Imagine my amazement when, in the very first trial product, the texture played with all its beauty. Now, on occasion, I always try to prepare this wonderful material.

Here is a rowan spoon, before coating.

And this is the same spoon soaked in linseed oil.

Mornings have become more frequent
Throwing handfuls of silver
And rowan in the dark thicket
The generosity of the summer saved.
Our cheeks from frost
They begin to bloom brighter
In man, apparently, too
There is something from the rowan.

Fruit wood is a valuable material that can be used for construction, but is more often used for finishing, making decorative items and tools, as it has beautiful texture.

To make the finished thing not only beautiful, but also durable, special attention is paid to the processing of the material. Exist features of drying fruit wood, which must be taken into account so that the treated surface subsequently does not have defects.

When the wood of fruit trees is properly dried, it is very strong, does not crack, and can be easily worked, cut, sawn, polished, and sanded.

How to dry apple wood

Apple wood is the most common material among all types of fruit tree wood. This is due to the wide distribution of the plant itself.

Before how to dry apple wood, you need to create the right conditions and choose the temperature regime that will ensure the safety of the structure. After processing, the core should acquire a red-brown hue and a yellow-pink sapwood, the rays of the core should be hardly noticeable.

Apple wood is highly drying, heavy, hard, has an average resistance to biological damage, as well as an average density. The shrinkage factor is even higher than that of hardwood.

All this suggests that drying apple wood need in a special mode to avoid warping and cracking.

1. lumber is stacked in a place protected from atmospheric influences;
2. atmospheric drying is carried out until a certain level of humidity is reached (20-25%);
3. moisture heat treatment and soft drying are carried out;
4. final drying is carried out at a temperature of up to 60 degrees to a humidity of 12%.

When the process is carried out correctly, it takes 25-30 days, which takes a lot of time. But forcing drying apple wood leads to a decrease in quality.

The apple tree, with its beautiful texture and wonderful properties, is used primarily to create:

• decorative products;
• designer furniture;
• musical instruments;
• expensive dishes.

Even wood chips and twigs have been used, they are used when smoking products to give them a special golden crust.

How to dry pear wood

The pear is the third most common fruit tree after the apple tree. Pear wood, when properly dried, has a soft texture; vessels, rays and annual rings are hardly distinguishable at the saw cut site. The shade is very pleasant, it can vary from pink to brown, from yellow to red, depending on the age of the sawn tree and how the thing was used, whether it was in direct sunlight.

If dry pear wood correctly, it has a high density, but at the same time retains flexibility, it is easy to paint, grind, polish. The pear dries out a lot, easily gives off moisture, despite the fact that in a freshly cut state it has a moisture content of 90-100%.

Process drying pear wood should be done in the following way:

1. steaming at 110 degrees until bright (optimum color is a uniform pinkish brown) and reaching 130% humidity;
2. drying at a temperature of 70 degrees to a humidity of 30-35%;
3. drying at a temperature of 50 degrees to a humidity of 22%;
4. moisture heat treatment and drying at a temperature of 30 degrees until a humidity of 9% is reached.

Drying pear wood ideally takes 20-25 days, after which processing can begin. This material is most in demand for the manufacture of:

• living room furniture;
• bedroom furniture;
• caskets and decorative items;
• imitation ebony.

How to dry cherries and cherries

For a special pink shade, cherry and cherry wood is popular. In some countries, in Germany in particular, these trees are specially bred for timber. In Russia, industrial breeding is carried out in the Krasnodar Territory.

A special difference between cherries and sweet cherries is a pinkish-brown hue, which becomes deeper and more saturated the older the tree, the red color shows through well. The structure of the wood is homogeneous, the fibers are straight, annual rings are clearly visible. Masters especially appreciate cherry for the fact that when polished, even without the use of special compounds, it acquires a characteristic glossy sheen.

Correct drying fruit wood cherries and sweet cherries allows you to get a material that is easy to process, cut, acquires resistance to decay.

Since cherry and cherry wood is low drying and practically does not warp, the drying process is quite simple:

1. stacking;
2. drying under the scattered rays of the sun up to 12 days;
3. steaming;
4. soft drying at a temperature of 40 degrees;
5. the second phase of drying at a temperature of 70 degrees for up to 15 days;
6. moisture heat treatment and drying to a moisture content of 8-10%.

Drying cherries or sweet cherries usually takes about 30 days. That's how much you need to get really high-quality wood from which you can make:

• parquet;
• souvenirs;
• sliced ​​veneer;
• exclusive furniture;
• musical instruments (pianos, grand pianos);
• smoking pipes;
• small utensils.

Drying other fruit species

In addition to apple, pear and cherry, wood is widely used:

• plums;
• apricot
• quince;
• peach
• mulberries;
• bird cherry;
• mountain ash;
• persimmons;
• walnut.

Features of drying fruit wood associated with structural features, density, moisture, resistance to biological agents. In any case, conditions are individual for each breed, and a competent drying process takes from 20 to 40 days.

Although industrial drying is optimal for obtaining the ideal result, it is also possible at home if the features of the process are studied, a professional moisture meter is available and good dryers are selected.