JACKFRUIT

Posted on June 17, 2008

The Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a species of tree of the mulberry family and its fruit is the largest tree born fruit in the world. The fruits can reach 35 kg on wight and up to 90 cm in lenght. It is a tree native to South East Asia and the very first time I saw its wood I was absolutely mesmerized.
No wood, to my knowledge, is of such a bright yellow as the Jackfruit. It is a soft to hard wood which lends itself to a beautiful polish. Unfortunately it will oxyde with time and in the presense of day light, and turn slowly to a braunish color, however this process may take up to 3 years.
I have been told that on Oahu, Wahiawa is the town where one can find most
Jackruit trees and indeed it is from there that I have recently been give a truck load of Jackfruit logs.

The last stand.

Posted on January 30, 2008

The Kiawe tree.

Kiawe trees are descended from a single tree planted in 1828 at a corner of a church in Honolulu. By 1840, thanks to the seeds collected from that first tree, progeny of the tree had become the principal shade trees of Honolulu and were already spreading to dry, leeward plains of all islands.
In Hawaii, Kiawe is most common on leeward costal areas but it some locations, however, it can be found at 900 feet elevation.
Kiawe, for most Hawaiian, is synonymous with barbecue chicken, ono grilled food, as it is mostly used as fuel.
Its wood is dark braun , extremely dense, with a beautiful polish.
If there are many Kiawe trees along the leeward side of Oahu, there is only one, to my knowledge, along Kamehameha highway all the way from Haleiwa down to Pear Harbor, and it’s a 20 foot high tree located near the bridge crossing Waikalaloa stream near Waikalani Drive.
I can’t explain why, but I feel much attached to that tree and would hate it if ever somebody would cut it. Somehow that tree symbolizes the urbanization of central Oahu and he stays there like the last stand before the backhoe and front end loaders move in.
Move in they did, but not to build houses, rather to build berms along that stretch of the road. And like a bird that shall not fly away, they cut the nicest branches of that sole kiawe tree for it not to hang over the highway.
Some other rather interesting trees grow around that area, namely some Pomelo trees bearing extremely beautifully shaped and colorful fruits as well as many coffee trees.

Listen to the sound of the chainsaw.

Posted on December 24, 2007

I have often been asked where I get my wood from to make my canoes. One would think that I must be a good customer of the few lumberyards we do have on Oahu or that I must be flying to the Big Island to get my Koa. Well, to be honest, its none of those. Yes, I do buy some veneer on E-bay from time to time, but for the rest nature supplies me most of the wood I need, and this for free. Now if woodworking is your hobby and you wonder where could you could get that ivory looking Tamarind or the golden Jackfruit wood for free, all you need to do is to follow the noise of the chainsaw and find out what kind tree somebody is cutting. You will be surprised how fast you will end up with a huge pile of wood. Here are the wood species I got this way in the last 2 weeks: Koa acacia, Koa formosa, Jack Aranda, Jackfruit, Monkeypod, beautiful wood that would have found its way into the shredder would I not have followed the sound of the chainsaw.

HOLY WOOD !!

Posted on November 21, 2007

This is how it looked, just 100 feet away from our house, on November the 4th. After a few days of heavy rain, the soil was so soaked that it gave way to a huge Albizia tree to topple over the main roadway in our community. It happened around 5.oo AM and luckily nobody got hurt. But the 100 foot tree took with him a few poles, the power and phone lines as well as the digital cables. In short, there was no more power available, land line phone or internet connection. This situation lasted for a few days until new poles were set up and all the cables repaired or connected. Did I say it was an Albizia tree ?. Somebody reminded me that I shall collect the wood as it would be sufficient to make a real size canoe inclusive a few paddles. Albizia is a real parasitic tree on our islands, it grows rapidly to heights of up to 110 feet and its wood is very heavy when freshly cut but once dry it will just weigh slightly more than balsa wood. Actually it makes for very light and sturdy shipping boxes.

If wood could talk..

Posted on October 28, 2007

As far as I can remember, wood has always triggered in me pictorial or sensorial memories or associations. Everybody knows the saying “If trees could talk”. Well, what about if wood would have a soul ?…Lets say its soul is what I imagine, remember  or associate when touching, looking , smell or hear about a given type of wood. Somebody mentioning to me the word “Acaccia” and it automatically brings me back 50 years when helping my Dad cut acaccia trees in our 2 acres private forest in France. My Dad used that wood to shape spikes for cart wheels. Smelling freshly cut dried oak reminds me of the oak lumberyard I always went hiding in my youth. Maple of course reminds most people of Canada. Looking at poplar wood and I see rows of beautiful and proud poplar trees lining some French roads. I can see them bending under the wind and I also see crows flying into it to tend to their nest.

RECYCLING KOA

Posted on October 22, 2007

This is a follow up on my post dated October 8th titled “Recycling or Dumping” I guess you may want to know what happened to the Koa that was cut along H2 Freeway. Well, not getting anywhere with the agencies and organizations I had lodged my complains about the situation, I decided to take matters in my own hands and call up the landscaping company who did the job. To my great surprise, the managment of the company was very eager to give the wood to anybody who may want to have it, rather than mulch it. I called up a few woodworking collegues and illico presto, we went with our pick ups to have them loaded with all the Koa accacia and some formosa they had cut. Some of this wood will sail far away across the world in the form of canoe models, some will end up as furniture and admired for generations to come. Like we love to say in France “Tout est bien qui finit bien” or in my mother’s tongue “Ende Gut, Alles Gut”.

Cuban Mahagony or Monkeypod

Posted on October 20, 2007

People always ask me where I get my wood from. Well, yes, I get my 2x 4’s from the hardware store  like all of us, but what about the Koa, the Milo, the Hau or Jackfruit and many others ?.. I like to hike, to scout places and in so doing since many years I know  “my trees” but the big majority of those are not for cutting .But others, which needed to be cut down either for liability or landscaping reason, I often ask the tree cutting company to let me have the wood.  Not all  tree cutting companies like to have to mulch or dump  the more rare and exotic trees. And it so happened lately that I got a phone call about a huge Monkeypod tree to be cut in Mokuleia and whether I would like to have a look at it once the tree is on the ground. To my enormous surprise it was not a Monkeypod tree but a Cuban Mahagony tree. The base of the trunk was 5 feet wide.  Part of the heart of the trunk was rotten but everything else was really beautiful . Nearly all the wood making up the trunk was fiddleback curly. It took me 4 week ends to chain saw mill that tree. Do I have a lot of Magagony ? Enough to last me a life time.

Recycling or dumping

Posted on October 8, 2007

This morning, when opening the Honolulu Advertiser I came across the article entitled “Cut-down trees dumped alongside H-2″, written by Reach Mike Leidemann, at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com. It so happen that every Sunday morning I go hiking with my dog, and in particular I like to scout out places alongWaikalaniDrive

Valley, which goes from Kam Hwy, and underneath H-2 towards

Koolau

Range. I remembered that the medium section of the H-2 freeway bridge crossing Waikalani Drivehas been cleared of trees and brushes lately, certainly at the same time those famous Albizia trees were cut , mostly for no other reason than for a well connected tree cutting company to make a fast and easy buck, but this is my personal opinion. If it is really about erosion and liability, than the agencies in question should remove the Eucalyptus trees which are famous to drain the soil and create erosion. Albizia, on the other hand does just the opposite, its very large and solid root system keeps the dirt in place. It is also a favorite tree for a variety of birds. I also remembered that Koa (Acacia koa) and Formosa Koa (Acacia confusa Merr) and some other variety of hard wood was growing in that area. Some other people knew about this as well, in particular Bart Potter, a well known tree cutter and member of the Hawaii Forest & Industry Association. I was curious to know what happened to all those trees and went scouting the place early this morning. I was not prepared for what I discovered and would have never thought that something of that nature would ever be allowed to happen on this

Island.  Every tree and brush was cut down, but how..Trees were cut down 2 to 3 feet from the ground, leaving hundreds of tree stumps like some hurricane struck landscape. It was clear also that none of the tress or brushes was ever collected to either mulch or bring to the dump, they were thrown all over the place. In some instances, the cut trunks or branches were just dumped down ravines. But what filled my heart with outrage was the fact that the various types of Koa trees and other hardwood trees have all been cut down. I knew those trees were no danger to nobody, whether to the structure of the bridge itself, not to the circulation above. So why cut them ?? I noticed that some cut trees had markers on them, either orange or yellow, but whatever the color, all those trees were cut down. Now nearly every school kid learns in school that Koa is a rare tree and its wood precious. But it seems that the agencies and companies most concerned with trees alongside our roadways do not know what are Koa trees, or what is a rare or precious wood. And the latter is only interested in the bottom line, not wood, really. All this leads to a wider question; isn’t there really anybody, amongst either the City& County or State agencies , responsible and competent to advise the hired tree cutting companies which trees to cut or not to cut ? Obviously we do not have foresters on our islands responsible for managed tree cutting, like it is the case in Germany,

France and most European countries. But if nothing of that sort, State or City & County should at least show kokua, or be the good shepherd when it comes to recycling wood, and recycling shall not just mean “mulching”. For most woodworkers on our

Islands, recycling wood means collecting cut trees, dress its dried wood, and make some of the most beautiful pieces of furniture or Art out of it.  And if anybody wonders what can be done with “recycled wood”, just visit the annual juried woodworking  exhibition, or HAWAII’S WOODSHOW  in

Honolulu.  City & County, and State should really set aside some space to collect and store some of the cut down rare tress and auction them off on a regular basis rather than mulch what could have been a beautiful Hawaiian Kou calabash, or a Koa rocking chair, or a

Milo table. Having said all this, I still wonder what will happen with those cut Koa trees…? They shall not end up as mulch. Please help !

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