paulownia timber

[bishopkerrie]

Has anyone worked much with paulownia timber. I gather from what I have read it is the better pine. More stable and workable. Its native to china and developing plantations here in Australia. As far as I know the plantations here are manly used to make match sticks. And plywood.
Any information on this timber would be gratefully recieved.
Thanks kerrie

[BobD (Archive)]

If everyone will pardon a "carving" reference here on the boad, I'm working on a santa carving out of Paulonia right now. It's very soft (I'd say even softer than pine) but seems pretty consistant throughout the grain. It holds decent detail, and doesn't seem too sticky (with sap).

The advantage of that wood is that it grows extremely fast--timber harvesters will plant it and keep cutting it off at ground level until it grows a foot thick in a year!

Bob

[bishopkerrie]

paulownia

Sounds like paulownia would be a good entarsia timber. So my next question is, how would paulownia work for the case of clock? Would it be too soft for a project like that? Does it split easily? Or is it farely stable.
thanks kerrie