Hawthorne is really lovely to turn. It's very dense wood that's capable of taking fine details. It can contain amazing grain patterns and colour. It is very difficult to dry successfully and it is important not to include the pith. I've had reasonable success with the following methods...
1. Large dry hawthorne logs found in the firewood pile (ie felled and processed by someone else) - these had of course split badly - however there was still enough un-spilt wood for some short spindle blanks that I made into boxes. Some of these old logs were spalted too and very interesting.
2. Medium sized freshly felled logs - processed into spindle blanks or small bowl blanks and either a. kept in large buckets of frequently changed shavings before rough turning - reasonably success rate, although any blanks with knots in have all split at the knots, or b. the ends painted with PVA and stacked on shelves in unheated barn - similar succes rate to the shavings method, and again splitting at the knots (even when these were painted with PVA too).
3. Hawthorne branchwood - no real sucess due to inclusion of the pith - these always seem to split - although larger branches can be split down the pith to leave enough material for pens, small tool handles, etc.
Something else to be aware of with Hawthorne - it's commonly used for hedging and may often contain nasty "surprises" like fencing staples and nails deep inside the wood :?
tekno.mage
