Red Elm Bowl
I had occasion to purchase a rounded bowl blank of Red Elm sometime in the past. I have been letting it air dry through the wax coating that it came with and I felt the time had come to give it a try. It is always hard to tell what to expect from a wood that is waxed since the process fairly well obliterates the grain, texture and any figure that might be present. In the end, the wood was fairly plain but with a decent reddish color, hence the name. I suspect, although I haven’t conducted a survey to find out, that every woodturner with any experience has at least one wood that he or she just intensely dislikes for one reason or another. For me, that wood is now Red Elm.
Red Elm Basics
Red Elm, properly known as Ulmus rubra, is a hardwood native to North America, from southeast North Dakota, east to Maine and southern Quebec, south to northernmost Florida, and west to eastern Texas. In timber form, it serves mostly utilitarian purposes such as construction and mining timbers, wheel hubs, railroad ties, ship-building, fence posts, sills, boxes, crates, pallets, cooperage, farm vehicles, food containers, baskets, and interior trim. It also finds the occasional use in something a bit finer such as furniture or flooring, but overall Red Elm is a utility wood. The trees, however, are considered quite beautiful and are frequently used as decorative plantings along streets and in parks. Sadly, all nine of the Ulmus species are susceptible to disease, especially Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus spread via a beetle, and the stocks of the trees have been greatly decimated. This makes finding large pieces of Elm wood rather difficult as many larger trees have died and been cut down.
Red Elm Commercial Sourcing
As a turning wood, Red Elm isn’t commonly seen for sale, although it is likely to be more common in those areas where it is native. Much of the Red Elm that comes on the market may have become available due to infection with the Dutch Elm fungus, so it would be wise to examine any wood or blanks for structural integrity before attempting to turn them. Of course, some folks enjoy the challenge of working with rotting or otherwise damaged wood, but always take precautions when doing so. Remember that wood flying off the lathe at you is a very real possibility, so safety goggles at a minimum! One source I know of for Red Elm turning blanks, and where from where I purchased mine is Got Wood, an online wood sales outfit located in North Carolina. They have a very nice selection of native Southeastern woods at amazingly good prices, an 8 inch round, 3 inches thick of Red Elm is less than $12, and are all around great folks to work with. They have incredibly speedy shipping at reasonable rates, and if you live in the Southeast, it is more environmentally responsible to work with native woods so that tropical forests are less likely to be over harvested and the carbon footprint from transport is considerably less that imported material. And, it keeps local folk working and owning a small business. These are all positives in my opinion.
My Experience Working with Red Elm
Working with the Red Elm itself was not too bad at first. It cut pretty easily, which isn’t surprising since it is considerably softer than oak, but as sometimes happens with softer woods, the end grain tearout, no matter how carefully I cut the wood, was absolutely atrocious. It took massive amounts of sanding in both directions, and finally concentrated sanding work right on the trouble spots, to make the piece presentable at all. I have faced down a lot of troublesome end grain tearout in my experiences with turning, but I have NEVER had so much grief as I did with this Red Elm. If the wood were to be fantastically figured or colored, maybe I could justify it, but the rather plain effect of the Red Elm hardly justified the level of effort required to make it workable for a finish.
On the Other Hand…Finishing
However, aside from the end grain tearout, the rest of the wood turned very smoothly with standard Easy Wood Tools. I had no trouble sanding the non-end grain areas and used a combination of regular sanding discs and Abranet. Once it was reasonable smooth, I used Behlen’s Woodturner’s Finish, something I use regularly, but the Red Elm required multiple very focused applications in troublesome areas, especially around the end grain tearout spots to get an even application.
Parting Comments
The final result is a nice size piece that has a reasonably nice appearance, but the level of effort required to work the piece to the point that I was satisfied was considerably more than is usually required. In the future, I feel that I will be inclined to avoid the Red Elm pieces and work instead with woods that are more responsive to sanding, less prone to end grain tearout, and which feature more visual benefit for the effort expended. It is always possible that it was just the luck of the draw with this particular piece of Red Elm, but unfortunately, these initial experiences are the ones which frequently inform our opinions about woods, and many other things in life, fair or not in the end. Given that, if a piece of Red Elm falls down and hits me on the head I will give it another try, but I am not likely to go out looking for it to happen!