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Wood: Ash Furniture |
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Ash belongs to the olive family, although its only fruit is a dart-like
winged seed. Ash is a great craft wood, but best known as the wood of
choice for baseball bats. Ash is a popular species for food containers
because the wood has no taste. |
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The Ash tree is one of the sacred trees of Wicca/Witchcraft revered by
contemporaries and ancients alike. It has large compound leaves divided
into four to eight pairs of lance-shaped leaflets, an arrangement that
imparts a light feathery arrangement to the foliage.. |
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The wood of the ash is a valuable commodity, due to the quickness of its
growth and the toughness and elasticity of its timber, in which quality
it surpasses most other trees. The wood is straight-grained, open pored,
and hard, with no distinctive taste or odor. The wood is heavy, strong,
stiff and hard, and takes a high polish. It is tough and yet elastic,
with high shock resistance and excellent steam bending characteristics.
Ash wood always fetches a good price being next in value to the Oak and
surpassing it for some cases, for it matures more rapidly than Oak and
is just as valuable as a sapling wood. |
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The sapwood is light-colored to nearly white and the heartwood varies
from grayish or light brown, to pale yellow streaked with brown. The
wood is relatively stable with little downgrade in drying. It only
occasionally shows interesting figure in crotch wood. The wood is
generally straight-grained with a coarse uniform texture. |
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The ash also can be used for medicinal uses. The bark of the ash was
used as a bitter tonic and astringent, and is said to have been valuable
as an anti-periodic. The leaves have diuretic, diaphoretic and purgative
properties and are employed in modern herbal medicine for their laxative
action, especially in the treatment of gouty and rheumatic complaints
proving a useful substitute for Sienna, having a less griping effect. |
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Ash mainly can be used for furniture, flooring, doors, architectural
millwork and molding, kitchen cabinets, paneling, tool handles, baseball
bats, hockey sticks, billiard cues, skis, oars and turnings. |
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Ash finishes relatively easily and takes a beautiful stain. It is ring
porous, so if you are looking for a glass like finish you must use pore
filler. Ash works easily with hand and power tools, with normal wear on
cutting edges. It glues well, but pre-drilling is recommended. It holds
screws well. It is most known for its excellent bending characteristics.
Ash has less chatter between the rows of open pores, so tends to stain a
little brighter than oak. It shrinks only moderately in seasoning and
bends well after. It can be stained to look like oak as the grain
pattern of the two woods is very similar. |
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Ash wood is used for more practical purposes than that of any other
tree, being so elastic that a joist of it will bear more pressure before
it breaks, than one made of other wood. |
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Wood Elm
Wood Walnut
Wood Ash
Wood Birch
05/06/08 |
