{"id":2203,"date":"2017-02-19T04:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T09:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/?p=2203"},"modified":"2017-01-04T19:27:28","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T00:27:28","slug":"2203-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/2203-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentine Osage Orange"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Geographic Distribution<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The wood commonly referred to and sold as Argentine Osage Orange is known to botanists and other scientists as Maclura tinctoria<\/em>.  In times past, M. tinctoria<\/em> was classified as belonging to both the Chlorophora<\/em> and Morus<\/em> genuses although the species designation stayed consistent.<\/p>\n

Those who are familiar with some of the more commonly desirable domestic hardwoods may recognize the Maclura<\/em> genus from Maclura pomifera<\/em>, otherwise known as American Osage Orange, about which I have written extensively in the past<\/a>.  The common name Argentine Osage Orange is used to distinguish between these two closely related species without having to resort to Latin naming conventions.<\/p>\n

As the common name suggests, M. tinctoria<\/em> is harvested from the northeastern tropical regions of Argentina, however, the tree grows and can be harvested from a wide region of the American tropics stretching from southern Mexico through Central America and down into Argentina.  Given the very wide geographic range of M. tinctoria<\/em> the common name is somewhat misleading although commonly understood among wood workers and vendors.<\/p>\n

To make matters more confusing, the Guatemalan variety of this same tree is sometimes sold as “Mora” or “Guatemalan Tigerwood.”  The use of the common name “Mora” leads to confusion with another wood harvested in northern South America, but not in Guatemala, Mora excelsa<\/em>, which is also sometimes sold under the common name “Mora.”  Any wood sold specifically as “Guatemalan Mora” or “Guatemalan Tigerwood” is in fact M. tinctoria<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some people may be familiar with the name “fustic.”  This was the common name used by the British for this tree and its wood, but more specifically for the dye that can be extracted from the wood.  This dye was used to create, in addition to other colors, the unique khaki color of United States and other nations’ military uniforms especially during World War I.<\/p>\n

For the sake of common understanding and ease of communication, I will refer to M. tinctoria<\/em> from this point forward as Argentine Osage Orange.<\/p>\n

\"Argentine

Argentine Osage Orange<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

General Characteristics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The heartwood of the Argentine Osage Orange is almost always golden to bright yellow in color.  Sadly this color will usually change over time upon exposure to ultraviolet light to a darker medium brown.  There are steps that can be taken to help slow this color change but it is usually not possible to completely prevent it.<\/p>\n

Argentine Osage Orange features a straight to interlocked grain.<\/p>\n

The finished texture is of a fine to medium nature.<\/p>\n

The endgrain of Argentine Osage Orange presents as diffuse and porous with medium sized pores in no specific arrangement.  Additional endgrain technical details are available to interested parties from the Wood Database entry for this wood.<\/p>\n

Argentine Osage Orange is very durable against rot due to fungus and features overall good weathering characteristics.  Argentine Osage Orange is also resistant to termites.<\/p>\n

Working Characteristics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Argentine Osage Orange can be considered difficult to work with due to its characteristics hardness and density.  Oddly, however, Argentine Osage Orange is reported to have little dulling effect on cutting surface edges such as would be expected from a wood of its hardness and density.  Perhaps a lack of mineral deposits and inclusions account for its relative kindness to finely honed surfaces.<\/p>\n

Argentine Osage Orange is reported to turn well which would be somewhat expected for a wood this hard.<\/p>\n

Argentine Osage Orange stains, finishes, and glues well, although I should imagine that few wood workers would want to attempt to change the good natural color for which this wood is best known through the use of dyes or stains.<\/p>\n

Argentine Osage Orange has no characteristic odor when worked or freshly cut.<\/p>\n

Pricing and Availability<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Within the range of prices for imported exotic hardwoods, prices for Argentine Osage Orange should fall in the moderate category, perhaps coming in close to the prices commanded by the domestic species.  However, it is much more common to find larger sizes of both dimensional lumber and turning blanks fashioned from Argentine Osage Orange as compared to the relatively limited sizes available of American Osage Orange.<\/p>\n

In this blog, I almost always recommend several vendors with whom I have done considerable business and in whom I have great confidence.  These vendors are: West Penn Hardwoods<\/a>, Bell Forest Products<\/a>, NC Wood<\/a>, Got Wood?<\/a>, and WoodTurningz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of these fine vendors, only West Penn Hardwoods and Bell Forest Products are currently offering Argentine Osage Orange.  West Penn Hardwoods is offering dimensional lumber at $17.60 per board foot as well as pen, spindle and bowl blank sizes.  Bell Forest Products is offering only pen, spindle, and bowl blank sizes with no dimensional lumber being available at this time.  As a point of comparison and to demonstrate a general price range, both vendors offer a 6” x 6” x 2” bowl blank for about $15, with West Penn Hardwoods being cheaper by less than $0.50.<\/p>\n

Woodfinder <\/a>is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers.  In your search for Argentine Osage Orange, this can be an invaluable resource provided you use multiple search terms to capture all the possible listings.  I can’t speak to the quality of any of the listed dealers, but Woodfinder does have the advantage of allowing searches to be performed based on location which might allow an interested buyer to visit a listed wood dealer in person to hand pick pieces at a comfortable price.<\/p>\n

A significant problem with using Woodfinder is that many vendors are listed for woods that, upon further investigation, they do not offer.  I don’t know if perhaps once they did and they didn’t update their listings or if some vendors use a standardized list of woods that include most everything conceivable with the idea that once you land on their page you will find something you want to buy even if you didn’t know it beforehand.  It happens to me all the time!<\/p>\n

Uses<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of the primary uses for Argentine Osage Orange, within the trees’ natural range at least, is heavy construction.  Argentine Osage Orange is also used for flooring, furniture, and turned objects as well as small and specialty wood items that take advantage of the hardness, color, and durability of the material.<\/p>\n

Sustainability<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Argentine Osage Orange is not listed as being in any way threatened or endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendices <\/a>nor does it appear on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To the best of my knowledge, Argentine Osage Orange is not subject to any special restrictions by any United States government agency.<\/p>\n

I realize that inherent in working with wood is the killing of a part of the natural world that may be slow to return and if I become deeply concerned about this fact, I will have to find a new hobby.  I hope that such a time does not come to pass or at least not any time soon.  In part because I am concerned about legally and responsibly obtained wood, I am reluctant to buy from sellers outside of well-established and known vendors.  I am highly unlikely, for example, to purchase any wood from auction sites, such as Ebay, because of uncertain sourcing and documentation, as well as the potential, even likelihood, of material being misidentified in order to achieve a higher selling price.<\/p>\n

However, due to the commercial scarcity of some domestic woods, resorting to auction sites such as Ebay or Etsy may be the only way to obtain some desirable domestic, or in some cases exotic imported, species that are not routinely commercially harvested.  The potential risks of buying in these marketplaces have to be balanced against the desire to work with a specific species of wood.  That is inherently an individual decision.<\/p>\n

I also realize that many, if not most, wood workers do not have endangered species lists memorized, therefore I think it worthwhile and important to do even a small amount of research before purchasing any lumber, domestic as well as imported, to be certain of the potential impact you are having, even in a small way, on threatened or endangered populations.  This information is easy to come by and takes only minutes to locate through any Internet search engine, including those you can access on your phone as you are standing in the lumber yard or store.  Unfortunately, you simply cannot count on a vendor to tell you a product they are selling is endangered.<\/p>\n

Health Hazards<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The sap from freshly cut Argentine Osage Orange has been reported to cause dermatitis in some individuals.<\/p>\n

In addition, the long-term negative effects of exposure to sawdust of any species are well documented.<\/p>\n

It is important to remember that although many people may, or may not, be sensitive to any given wood the only experience that truly counts is your own, so use reported side effects as guidance but not as a substitute for cautious and safe practices.<\/p>\n

Appropriate protective equipment is therefore always recommended when working with this, or any other, wood, exotic or domestic, unless you have worked with the species before and are certain you are not sensitive to it.<\/p>\n

Complete information about health hazards<\/a> associated with a wide variety of exotic hardwoods is available from The Wood Database<\/a>.  Additional information about how to best use a dust collection system and personal protective equipment, such as respirators, can also be found through this excellent and comprehensive resource<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I experienced no negative side effects when working with Argentine Osage Orange.<\/p>\n

My Personal Experiences                        <\/strong><\/h2>\n

I was only working with a small piece of Argentine Osage Orange in pen blank size so my experience is inherently limited.  That said, I have made larger objects from American Osage Orange and had very good experiences with it and given the similarity between the two woods I would expect to have positive experiences with the Argentine variety as well.<\/p>\n

As expected, I did find the wood to be quite hard but that in turn meant that it turned cleanly and easily on the lathe.  The freshly cut piece required little sanding to achieve a very fine finished surface that was ready the application of the cyanoacrylate pen finish system that I prefer.  The color was excellent and provided a high degree of interest to the finished piece.<\/p>\n

Overall, despite the small size of the piece that I worked with, I was quite pleased with Argentine Osage Orange and would be happy to work with it again in the future.  As it happens, I have several bowl blank sizes of Argentine Osage Orange that I found on a clearance sale so I am certain to work with larger sizes in the future, a prospect that I look forward to indeed.<\/p>\n

As always, I wish all my readers a great experience in whatever their wood working interests happen to be and to those who like working with lathes especially, do a good turn today!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As expected, I did find the Argentine Osage Orange wood to be quite hard but that in turn meant that it turned cleanly and easily on the lathe. The freshly cut piece required little sanding to achieve a very fine finished surface that was ready the application of the cyanoacrylate pen finish system that I prefer. The color was excellent and provided a high degree of interest to the finished piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":2199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,127,128,138,130],"tags":[161,171,180,188,200,214,217,226,239,240,247,252],"yoast_head":"\nArgentine Osage Orange - Wood Turning Pens ..<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Closely related to the American species is this native of the tropical America's with a rich yellow color and distinct hardness perfect for lathe turning.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/2203-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Argentine Osage Orange - Wood Turning Pens ..\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Closely related to the American species is this native of the tropical America's with a rich yellow color and distinct hardness perfect for lathe turning.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/2203-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Wood Turning Pens ..\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-19T09:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-05T00:27:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/Osage-Orange-Argentine.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1237\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Wood_Pens\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Wood_Pens\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/2203-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.woodturningpens.com\/2203-2\/\",\"name\":\"Argentine Osage Orange - 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