Jumbo Diamond Willow

[JWood]

Merle was Talking about his dog topper on diamond willow...so I had to go off half cocked and get a 5" x 72" log sent to me from Michigan. Must be Canadian inches or something...dang fat. Bark was peeling like a banana, and then the other side was like peeling off like tiny sandy fingernails...learned why it is discussed so much.

Any bright ideas on what to make here? I am thinking of setting 5 little candles along its length...once I figure out what’s inside.

[Brian T]

Clean off the bark. I have ideas but I refuse to bend your imagination. Not fair.

Use a big Dremel or a Fordom to clean the crap out of the diamonds.
Sanding, from 64 to 320 grits, won't take a week.
Four coats of MinWax Tung Oil Protective Finish a week apart will look water-wet.

There's a diamond willow furniture shop a block from my house. Those guys crank out dining room furniture and queen/king bed frames.

Look for bug/wood worm holes. Any fresh sawdust from those holes? Half a dozen fast freeze/thaw cycles ought to do the trick.

When DW dries, it is tougher than bone. A concussion has messed my sense of balance.
The DW shop guys make canes, 50 at a time and custom fit them to the user.
I walk with one. Pretty fancy but it holds me up!

[woodburner807]

That is a nice piece of wood and should finish up great.

[Bob K.]

Maybe a walking stick for the Jolly Green Giant...he must be getting up there in years by now.

[Randy]

I like the candle holder thought. It would make a great looking coat rack.too.

[Buffalo Bif]

stand it up and hang holiday decorations on it?

[JWood]

Clean off the bark. I have ideas but I refuse to bend your imagination. Not fair.

Use a big Dremel or a Fordom to clean the crap out of the diamonds.
Sanding, from 64 to 320 grits, won't take a week.
Four coats of MinWax Tung Oil Protective Finish a week apart will look water-wet.

There's a diamond willow furniture shop a block from my house. Those guys crank out dining room furniture and queen/king bed frames.

Look for bug/wood worm holes. Any fresh sawdust from those holes? Half a dozen fast freeze/thaw cycles ought to do the trick.

When DW dries, it is tougher than bone. A concussion has messed my sense of balance.
The DW shop guys make canes, 50 at a time and custom fit them to the user.
I walk with one. Pretty fancy but it holds me up!

Great information - thanks everyone. A DW shop? I never even heard of the stuff before last week and now they have shops? I have used (The Real Milk Paint Co) tung finish on my slab tables, but the old finishing adage (once a day for a week, one a week for a month, one a month for a year, one a year for the rest of your life) is getting old. I think I might try the Minwax...sounds like you have been down all the roads, and I' get a little gloss.

Bugs? Freeze thaw? What the heck is going to come out at me?

Coat rack, green giant cane, candle centerpiece....will keep you posted...

[Brian T]

Yup. The place is called "Out-of-Square" Construction. But when they build you a queen-size head board and foot board, every joint is exactly 90 degrees.
All huge mortise and tenon glued joints. There were some learned tricks to do squares within squares.
Every spring, they harvest about 5 cords of DW. Strip the bark and into numbered bins by size to slowly dry for years. Your big piece might go into the 2022 bin.
Besides the beds, the coolest things were a dining room table and 8 chairs. The staircase railing was neat. They built a fake staircase in the shop to get it right.

DW is a bacterial disease that infects the joint where the branches stick out.. Then those die and the wood grows crooked for years.
There is some kind of wood-boring beetle larva that gets into those joints. My walking cane has 3 or 4 bug holes in it.
After a few winters in the drying shed, just the ghost of bugs gone by, I suppose.

[Brian T]

As you might imagine, doing 50 walking canes or 50 hiking poles might be a chore to finish.

They use cup hooks to hang the whole batch on a clothes line. Vinyl glove then a cotton glove over that.
Dip their hand in the TOPF and wipe it on. Doesn't take a minute each.

[JWood]

Shreddy nose-burning gritty soft stinky dust bomb. When is the fun part?

[Brian T]

The diamond growths are caused by disease. Not dust you need to breathe. Willow produces "salisylic acid" in the bark.
This is the base ingredient for making acetylsalicyic acid, ASA, or commonly known as aspirin. More dust you don't need.
Hoping you have adequate dust control.

[Donsexton]

I like it I wonder is that the same willow they make cricket bats from

[Brian T]

The willow in a cricket bat is snow white and featureless. Must be cultivated and pruned to make knot-free wood.
Some of the diamond willow used in the bed-heads from the shop here is just about contorted, squiggily there are so many diamonds.
Usually, a whole patch, maybe acres, are infected. The DW guys sometimes get invitations to help clear land.