Hand Made Spoons of Peach Wood

When I do woodworking shows I meet some very nice crafters. Ellis Porter is one such individual. He paints birds and Indians and what ever else suits him. We have had booths next to each other for several years now.

At a show this spring he asked me if I would like some peach wood. In general fruit woods are colorful and fun to work. So I said yes. The next day he brought me a peach tree which had just been cut. It was as heavy as lead.

I sliced it up on my bandsaw as soon as I got it, to reduce the tendency for it to check, or crack. With the first cut I realized that this was very attractive wood. I made wooden pins first. These peach pins are displayed in the jewelry section of this site. Their small size allowed them to dry quickly. The sawn planks I put in a box to dry.

The other day I got tired of kicking the box around as it was right where I plug and unplug my saws. So I laid out some spoons and worked them up. I never get over being amazed at the color and graiEditRegion1n pattern of different woods.

I think the darker areas are where the wood had spalted a bit. Spalting, or fungus invasion of wood, looks very different in different species of wood. It must be that a certain species of fungus only invades a certain host tree. If this is spalting in peach it does not look anything like the spalting you see in maple.