Mulberry

[Scoony]

Got some mulberry boards from a friend last year. This wood was cut many years ago and sat in a barn. I had them in the shed out back for almost a year and when I brought them into the shop they measured 8% moisture which is about the best I can get with airdried wood. 

Initial milling was done with tailed tools. A Shelix head milled it with no issues, but when I smoothed up the surface with a hand plane, I was getting long stringy tear out. Tried the #5, then a LN low angle jack and a low angle smoothing plane. All produced the long stringy tear out. I jad t run the pieces back through to mill down the tear-out.

Dovetails were a different story. The wood cut fine and chopped out a lot easier than I initially thought.  This mulberry chopped out easier than cherry.

This is a board edge. I did not get a good pic of the face grain tear-out.  

   

   

I am a little rusty on dovetails and actually started a cut on the wrong side of the line. Forgot to X-out the waste. Luckily I caught it quickly. You can see a shallow kerf on the first fill pin from the left. Excuse the beer. I was taking the photo for instagram and doing some product placement. I am not a IPA fan, but that was actually pretty good beer. 

   

[Stwood_]

Mulberry. That reminds me, I have a small section of a log thats been outside for a year or so. I need to mill it up.

I've never worked mulberry that I remember, so no clue as to your tearout with a hand plane.

[Arlin Eastman]

In the first picture of the side grain it looks like wood rot or white rot.  Could be a reason it is tearing out like that.

[Scoony]

In the first picture of the side grain it looks like wood rot or white rot.  Could be a reason it is tearing out like that.

The wood is pretty solid, doesn't seem to be any rot. I think its just a case of interlocking grain. I am finding out that this wood is not kind to chisels, or at least it does not like LN chisels. Tears up the edge pretty quickly, which is weird since the waste chops out nicely. Have to sharpen after getting half way through 4 sockets.

[med-one]

Tough on chisels, looks like gnarly grain.

[Blockplane]

Tears easily, hell on edge tools. I guess I'm too old to try to make that work.

[TomFromStLouis]

I've gotten tear out like that too. Planing from the wrong direction for that section or the low angle are possible causes so I would try a higher angle from the other direction. Still, sometimes its just easier to use the machine if it works. Mulberry can be stringy, no doubt.

[Hank Knight]

I've got some short mulberry log sections that have been sitting under the eaves at my house for a year. I need to mill it into something useable. I think the pretty yellow color oxidizes to a medium brown in a short time. It's pretty, though. Sounds like it's not a lot of fun to work.

[Scoony]

This is one of the pieces of mulberry. This is 11" and was almost 5' long, but I cut off half of it for this project. I am still wondering what I will do with this piece. 

   

[Scoony]

Cut some stopped dados without any drama

   

   

   

   

Had a total of 4 dados to cut and it went quickly.