Researching My Hardwoods

This pretty tree gets my attention every spring because of its beautiful blossoms. Outside of that, I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about it before this year. Every year it blossoms first. The apple tree blossoms are not out yet and neither are the wild black cherry or the pin cherries. I didn't recall seeing any fruit on it so I figured it must be similar to the cherries in some way. My wild guess was Serviceberry and it turned out to be correct but I did have to look it up to be certain. Not seeing the fruit has more to do with the local bird population than their similarity to the cherries though. I may be able to get a little bit of the wood for hair sticks but it will be very limited.

While puzzling about one of the few trees in our woods that I hadn't positively identified yet, I wondered about the hardness and strength of the various woods I am working with. Some of them are a little out of the ordinary and the resulting information was a bit of an eye-opener in some cases.
Here is a list of the hardness values on the Janka hardness scale (Only the hardwood trees available in my neck of the woods are listed):

Black Willow            430 lbf
Speckled Alder          Unknown but similar to the Black Willow
Red Osier Dogwood Also unknown but again similar to the Black Willow
Gray Birch                790 lbf
American Elm          830 lbf
White Birch              910 lbf
Red Maple                950 lbf
Black Cherry            950 lbf
Mountain Ash        1210 lbf
White Ash              1290 lbf
Apple                     1730 lbf
Serviceberry          1800 lbf

lbf is short for pounds of force. The higher the Janka hardness test number the harder the wood is. After carving seasoned Applewood, I wasn't surprised at its high score. I didn't expect it to be even harder than Rock Maple which comes in at 1450 lbf. There are two species of poplar growing in the woods here but I haven't checked them out very closely. They don't have good strength and they aren't very good firewood. I'll check them out more closely sometime in the future.

Finally got an order form set up

It isn't perfect but it has been created and it is on the Rustic Hair Stick page and it is functional. Building the form itself wasn't all that difficult once I started working with the program. Where things got challenging was making the actual website button. I had a bear of a time hitting on the right phraseology to search for what I wanted. I finally hit on the right wording and found Da Button Factory. From there it was pretty straightforward. I believe this makes the website officially open for business.

I will add a page showing how the form should be filled out when I have time. It shouldn't be that difficult for a customer to figure out.

Whittling With My Boys

Instead of getting some free labour out of my boys rough carving hair sticks, I brought some applewood sticks cut for carving letter openers. We worked at this in their apartment while my daughter had her violin lessons in town. We try to combine trips as much as possible.

I had intended to rough out two of them before our session was done but only completed the one in the photo. We videotaped most of the session so at some point we should have something to post about it on the Youtube channel. Sheldon finished rough carving his letter opener after we left and Brandon still has to finish his. We'll sand them down finish them and post about the results later. It was a good lesson for them. The fact that they'll finish with a useful attractive tool will be a big confidence builder.

Applewood & Red Osier Dogwood

One of the things I enjoy about making a project as small as hair sticks is that I can work with different kinds of wood that I otherwise can't get in sufficient quantities. Applewood is a case in point. It is probably the hardest and best quality wood I have available for making hair sticks. I've been able to get a small amount of it this spring because there are a lot of old half dead neglected apple trees growing in the bush around where I live. I cut some of the suckers off of them. Then I happened across the apple tree volunteer growing in the ditch on the edge of our road (pictured above). It needed some structural pruning which as you can see has been done. After the apple season is over this fall, I will prune it down to proper orchard standards. The resulting brush yielded quite a bit of material for me. That will have to do until later this year because I have no plans to try and harvest more applewood until the fall pruning season.

My oddball choice of wood for hair sticks is Red Osier Dogwood. This stuff has rich red winter bark and is used as an ornamental perennial is some landscaping designs. It's only commercial use that I can find is basket weaving. It grows wild here. This is a bit of an experiment but I think it will make an interesting bark on style hair stick. Because of last fall's ditch clearing, I couldn't get a lot of quality material. I'm curious to see how popular they will be. If they prove a hit, then next spring I will make sure that I harvest a lot of it. The supply sources should have bounced back by then.

I'm in the process of carving all this material. It's best done while the wood is green. Unfortunately, it doesn't sand or finish well until it has had a chance to season. I expect to be able to offer some of these sticks within a couple of weeks.

Progress Report

I should have been writing updates here regularly but I've been dealing with a lot of other issues. This post may come off as a bit of a shotgun blast covering a whole bunch of stuff. I've been working hard to make this woodworking business a reality. If you check the Rustic Hair Stick tab, you will find products in stock and available. I have not yet managed to create a proper order form and I'm hoping to rectify that in the near future. Ordering right now involves messaging me at myfamilycountryproducts@gmail.com. Awkward at best but in the meantime, it will have to do.

Most of my work right now is trying to build up inventory so that I can make, finish and sell product on an ongoing basis without having to stop because I'm short of anything.

Hoping this weekend to put together a video announcing that we are open for business, demonstrating how to carve our triangular cross-section sticks and doing a small give away.

There are a number of up and coming projects in the works so I should have lots to talk about here. Stay tuned there is more to come.