working with green willow

[sallott]

I am making an irish harp out of green willlow. I live in southern australia and while I have carved the local hard woods and pine, all dried and finished commercially, before I've never had anything to do with willow. I have tried to carve greeen eucalypt but this cracked very quickly. I'm trying to create an irish harp, which was traditionally made from willow. Can anyone suggest how I should dry and maintain this wood?
sallott

[Hugh-P]

To Start with, I'm certainly not an expert, but have worked with willow for making walking sticks. It will crack!! You might get by with being careless with it, but mostly it will crack. Seal the ends of the block, (dip the ends in wax) and dry it slowly, like any other wood. I do find it more prone than most woods for cracking. I have used sticks that have been drying for 6 months, they appeared quite stable. All of a sudden even after they were finished for a month or two , they would crack length wise. Like most woods, it is best to dry the sticks for at least 12 months, (air drying 1yr to the inch of thickness) Willow will warp also. My sticks are dried lying flat, over head in my shed. Lots of heat and air circulation in the summer. Hope this helps.

[sallott]

thank you very much for your advice on handling green willow.
sallott

[Clifford_Parker]

Hugh,

Reasonable advice for stickmaking but completely wrong for a harp. The green willow should be bent over a form and THEN dried. Once dry the final shaping and carving are done.

I built a number of willow lawn chairs in my youth. Same theory assuming you mean the early Celtic or medieval Irish harps. If you mean the type pictured on a Guinness then you need a willow log, 5-10 years for it to dry, and a LOT of cutting, carving, and shaping.

[Hugh-P]

Thanks Clifford, sounds like good advice. I've only used willow for making walking sticks.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I made an eagle head cane from our local Navajo willow and no problems.

[Bob De.]

I think that willow has a neat look to it, but never had any luck using it, it always cracks on me.

[Clifford_Parker]

I use lots of willow both with and without diamonds and have never had any problems with cracking or checking. For my walking sticks I let them dry for a month or two before peeling them and then leave them in my garage until I'm ready to work with them.