Apple Wood

[mathias65]

Has anyone worked with apple wood?

If so, my question is, does it finish any better than cherrywood does? Giving a nice smooth, shiny finish like briar does? Or is it the same dull finish?

I have at least one, perhaps more, workable blocks of it, was wondering what direction to take with it. Plan smooth, or go rusticated?

[Charl]

Haven't worked with apple before, but if it's anything like other fruittree wood, it should shine OK-ish, but will dull quickly.

[mcgregorpipes]

I've taken a few pieces of well dried apple cut into slabs to show off the grain to my buffing machine and they look fantastic. I'm very interested in making applewood pipes, I did some free tree service this spring and aquired a load of various apple wood, choke cherry and lilac. Fruit woods can have nice contrasting heartwood/sapwood, I would show it off and keep it smooth.

why would polished fruit wood dull faster than briar?

[taharris]

I've made bowls and pens from Apple wood.

It turns like a dream and you can put a nice smooth finish on it.

The color is cream to tan.

Here is a crappy picture of a tamper that I made from apple:



It turns so nice because it is a bit soft.

[The Smoking Yeti]

If ya'll remember a while back Meathod made an Applewood "wizard pipe" which you can see here: http://www.pipemakersforum.com/ I personally think it finishes up quite lovely.

[mcgregorpipes]

I have a big load of apple wood (a couple trees) that i've cut up into lengths, waxed the end grain. I'm thinking about cutting up most of it for pipes. For anyone who is interested in drying your own project wood the best way is to make a small dehumidifier kiln ( a box big enough to fit your blocks, a small dehumidifier, and a fan ) and you drop the humidity slowly over a couple weeks. if you're extremely patient you can let it air dry with the end grain sealed. if you're not, you can rough shape it green and then put it in a box, cover with sawdust and let it dry.. heheh or you can speed it up with a microwave in careful short bursts.

Here's some apple I dried from around 50% moisture content down to 10-15% in the microwave. takes 20 minutes. I very roughly shaped some blocks just to remove material so the wood can dry and contract without cracking. they're on a shelf in a box to finish drying for a couple weeks. it actually worked well, some little cracks developed on the edges of some blocks and i was able to cut them out.

note top photos is a fresh cut green slab, 2nd photo is cut and waxed, 3rd photo is mostly microwave dried and my first attempt at very rough shaping..

[jkcpalmer]

I've made several Apple Wood pipes. i picked up some 2" x 3 1/2" by 35" boards from a friend that he's had sitting for about 25 years.
I'm very new to pipe making but from what i can tell they smoke just fine..

I leave the walls of the bowl and shank a little thicker since it doesn't have the heat resistance of briar.

They also finish pretty nicely. only issue i've run into is a few small dark lines 1-4mm long that interrupts the grain pattern. it appears to be part of the grain not a foreign object of any kind. it hasn't been the case on all of them..