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Wood Types
  • Olivewood (3)

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  • Pen Blanks (1)
  • Craft Blanks (1)
  • Knife Blanks (1)

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Color
  • Amber (3)
  • Gold (2)
  • Golden brown/tan (2)
  • cream white (1)

Wood Properties

Wood Properties
  • Dried (3)
  • Gallery Grade (high figure 2 sides) (1)
  • Gallery Grade PLUS (high figure 4 sides) (1)

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Ship Worldwide
  • Worldwide shipping is allowed for this item (3)

African Olivewood

This wood is found mostly in South Africa. It is a gnarly tree that is slow growing. This material is harvested legally through a permit system. It is a very dense, fine grained wood that is wonderful for woodturning and many other uses. Has a pleasant smell. Note that these are high quality pieces without checks or voids, not seconds like most sellers have. Most of our Olivewood is dried (will be marked on the item if dried, except pen blanks which are always dried). This is no simple process. The logs or lumber are allowed to dry for 4-10 years and they crack profusely during the process. We then get an average yeild of 18% from each log that is good enough to make the pieces we sell, and mostly we get pen blanks. Many logs can’t produce a single 2 x 2 x 12. Selling wet olivewood is different and has far lower costs to the seller (but much more trouble for the buyer). To dry a piece that is 2 x 2 x 12 from the wet/waxed state will take at least 3 years of constant humidity above a certain level and a fairly constant temperature. For that reason, the pieces not marked dried are far cheaper since there is about 75% less labor to produce them. Truly dry olivewood is so much trouble to produce that it is rare on the market in these defect free pieces we make. When we say “air dried” or “kiln dried” we mean the wood is known to be at less then 12% moisture. We use 12% moisture as a maximum because in most locales this is dry enough to work immediately. Be aware that most vendors offering “air dry” wood are offering very wet wood, or wood with unknown moisture content.

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Pen Blanks

Olivewood Burl pen blanks PtoZ

Pen blanks in this hard to get burl.  Great figure in them as you can see!

Piece W

Olivewood Burl pen blank, dried, size: 3/4 x 3/4 x 4 inches

Craft Blanks

Olivewood Burl AtoH

Olivewood Burl in dried pieces.    We got these in 2011 as rough sections from Olivewood trees grown in California.  They were a real bear to dry and I had to do it ultra slowly through heavy parrafin wax for over 10 years just to get them dry.  They cracked when drying and then we cut these good pieces out from around the cracks.   Seems quite stable once dry, but not a wood you'd want to buy in a wet state unless you have a vacuum kiln.

Piece C

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 1.5 x 1.5 x 5 5/8 inches

$24.00
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Piece D

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 1.5 x 1.5 x 5 5/8 inches

$17.00
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Knife Blanks

Olivewood Burl i to O

Dried Olivewood burl.  These have curl, swirl and other figure.   Took an age (10+ years) to slow dry them carefully but they were worth it.   Not something we can usually get as the drying time is extreme to prevent the pieces cracking. Seems stable once dried though.  

Piece K

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 1.25 x 3 1/8 x 4.25 inches

$31.00
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Piece M

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 1.25 x 1.5 x 5 1/8 inches

$18.00
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Piece N

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 3/4 x 1 7/16 x 3 1/8 inches

Piece O

Olivewood Burl, dried, size: 3/8 x 2.5 x 4 1/8 inches

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