A Tree With Connections Quercus suber L. - (The Sequel)

Quercus Suber L
A tree with connections 

                                              (the sequel)

The leaves and nut

A few posts ago, I wrote a few lines about the Cork Tree Quercus suber L. Because this is a "...woodworking blog..." (ish), there was a big flaw in my post. The wood itself. So I used that excuse and did a bit more of research, made a couple of projects, and took a few more photographs. So stick around.

The wood

In Portugal, since the late 90's, due to habitats, local economic reasons, etc, the Cork tree has become more and more protected. So about the wood itself, I can only talk about what I read before my woodworking experience and my own projects. You cannot expect to just go to a sawmill and buy cork tree wood, but you can get pruned branches or very old trees that have fallen.


Back in the day, there were reports of using the wood for building tools, building small boats, kitchen utensils, turnings, and firewood.

Today, this hardwood is used raw for decorative purposes - as a stump. Tables are built with it, coasters, spinning spindles (the spindle part), turnings, mallets, carvings, firewood, etc.

One of my early turning experiments - RIP 2015-2019

A carving experiment from this year

I could write about all the scientific research but in order to be brief and to prevent this from becoming dull, I'll stop writing and let you contemplate the images.

The color varies a lot as the images show.

I got you, readers, the lighter and the darker I could find.

The cork as the bark, (due to lack of a better word) the skin and the wood itself.

last but not the least the texture

A big thank you to my host Brian.

Until next time,

António