Black Ash

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

I called in on a mate today, another professional turner and he showed me a species of timber that I have never seen or heard of before. The fact that I never knew it existed and that I had never seen it before today was surprising after so many years working in wood I thought I had heard of a good many. (I know there are too many to hear about all of them) But this one was...Black Ash. Fraxinus nigra.
Grows in Canada and has unusual properties so worth looking in Wikipedia at it.

[Les Symonds]

I guess that in a world as vast and as varied as ours, there will be many more timbers out there, unknown to us yet common enough to some.

There's a good entry in the Wood Database http://www.wood-database.com/black-ash/ for it.

Les

[seventhdevil]

other than being softer and lighter it's not unsimilar to normal english or american ash.

it's slower grown hence the lightness as there is more early wood and this reduces the strength too.

possible that you have handled some in the past and not even known about it john...

guitar builders love it.

[The Bowler Hatted Turner]

You could be right Steve but I can't ever remember handling a piece as a wood machinist/joiner/furniture maker or turner. The thing that struck me was how light (weight wise) it was compared to other pieces of Ash that I have used. Reading Wikipedia it appears that the cell structure is slightly different too.