I have covered Persimmon as a wood in detail in a previous post.
Persimmon is one of my favorite woods to work with because it is hard, cuts cleanly, and often has interesting figure and the occasional heartwood inclusion. The problem is that Persimmon is very hard to find as it is not a commercial lumber but rather a wood only found through small craft mills that harvest and process ornamental and fruit trees rather than commercial species. I bought this Persimmon because it was available and it was the largest size they had, 8″ x 2″.
When the wood arrived I was shocked at its condition. It was covered completely in black mold and I could smell the rot. Once I started to cut the wood I realized that it wasn’t rotten through although the surface of the wood showed some punky areas. The wood was, though, heavily spalted, a polite term for mold and rot which turns the wood black in streaks and patterns that can in themselves be interesting. I don’t mind spalted wood if that is what I order and am expecting, but in this case I was given no notice to expect such heavy mold. The Persimmon was still a bit damp in spots but I didn’t think it warranted going through the green turning and sealing process, so I turned to final size and finished/sealed with Shellawax which some vendors use as a drying seal instead of a finish. I don’t think the bowls will warp any now that they are sealed but we shall see over time.
7 Persimmon Bowls
To be fair to the vendor, Wood Turning Blanks For U, it is true that Persimmon, much like Holly, will spalt easily and heavily if it is not immediately rough turned and sealed. One would have to obtain the wood practically the same day it was cut to avoid all spalting so the condition wasn’t entirely within the vendor’s control. However, I have never received blanks as moldy as these were from any other vendor and I have noted this problem, although not to this scale, with other blanks from the same vendor. I won’t order from this vendor, even though they are delightful and very helpful people, except when they have a species that no one else carries, which is a pretty common occurrence. I just placed an order with them for some Camphor wood which is very difficult to find as it isn’t a commercial timber wood. Camphor is highly unlikely to spalt but it might gather surface mold. We shall see.
The blanks turned easily enough, even though oven dry Persimmon is among the hardest of the North American woods, which makes sense given that it is in the Ebony genus. I believe this was due to the slight dampness in the wood. It came off the lathe in long ribbons which is common with damp woods, but as I noted above, I didn’t think it was damp enough to bother with a full green turn treatment. For a damp wood it cut cleanly and sanded easily. I could take a bowl from blank to final finish in under an hour. It was a fun little two day project and now I will watch to see if the blanks were damp enough that they will warp. One is two days old and it hasn’t moved, and given that no part of the bowls are over 0.25″ thick it wouldn’t take a lot of time for the moisture to leave.
7 Persimmon Bowls Stacked