Can anyone recommend a good source of information on what woods are toxic and bad to work with. I started to search with Google but it can turn up so much rubbish that it makes it difficult to sort out the useful stuff. I hope some of the experienced heads here can point me in the right direction.
-
Thanks for visiting The Penturners Forum today.
There are many features and resources that currently you are unable to see or access, either because you're not yet registered, or if you're already registered, because you're not logged in.
To gain full access to the forum, please log in or register now. Registration is completely free, it only takes a few seconds, and you can join our well established community of like-minded pen makers.
Toxic woods
- Thread starter Wrongway
- Start date
Vic
chas_41_uk
Registered
wm460
Grand Master
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2013
- Posts
- 23,113
- First Name
- Mark
I like that Database Chas thanks for posting.
Penpal
Grand Master
Happy days most common use timbers are known carcionagenic or toxic and the advice given here are valid and important. Protection is needed. Take care.
Peter.
Peter.
Neil
Fellow
There is more bullshit and supposition written about poisonous woods than any other subject in the world. I write that with a degree of authority, I used to lecture Architects and designers on the use of wood in design and have been involved in the last twenty years in some of the largest construction projects involving wood around the world including the Beijing Olympic stadium, Melbourne Commonwealth Stadium, our own 2012 Olympic village complex (all lined with American Black Walnut, a ridiculous extravagance for buildings that were going to be used for social housing). So hope that you understand that this is a concise flippant assessment of reality.
There is no wood that is dangerous that we come across (that I am aware of!!) that is poisonous. Wood will not do you any harm. If you chose to inhale it, ingest it, or absorb it within your body by means weird or kinky, then your body is likely to react.
Your body was designed not to run on Ash dust, Yew Sandwiches or internal leg splints of oak, and as such your bodies natural reactions are to reject those substances or particles. This can result in vomiting or diahorrea. If you breathe it your body might produce fluid in your lungs in an attempt to reject the impostor, this is called pneumonia!
With that in mind please dont eat, drink, breathe wood or its derivatives and god willing, you should see next Christmas.
A few myths. Laburnum is not poisonous. Since records began in the late 1940s, there has not been one proven case of Laburnum poisoning. 2-3,000 precautionary admissions occur in NHS hospitals each year because little johnny went within twenty feet of a laburnum tree and has a dodgy stomach, nothing to do with where he stuck his fingers in the dirt no doubt or that the pet has worms! Laburnum seeds are deemed poisonous. They might make you ill, they are not designed to be eaten! If you eat them your body will reject them!
Yew. Yew has been known to kill people. Please do not do what these people did by sitting down to a slap up Yew tree picnic with the intention of committing suicide. Yew foliage can kill you as will a good supper of boiled tar, but surprisingly that wasnt designed to be eaten either. Yew wood is not proven to be poisonous, indeed the cancer drug Tamoxifen was derived from the Yew tree and takes its name from the latin for yew, Taxus baccata. If you are a horse and you see a tasty yew tree, its definately not your day because you are a stupid animal who finds a poisonous tree tasty. It will kill you. Best no to try and run in the 3.40 at Anfield and you might be OK.
Wenge (Pronounced wen gay,) will upset you just like any other wood, if you get splinters. However, the onset of septacemia is rather quicker if you should decide not to remove the splinters. Hint, take the splinters out and bathe with TCP.
Tambootie. Should you find one of these trees, native to the Zulu Natal area, growing just off the Croydon bypass, please dont nick any branches to burn on your barbeque. The wood of the tambootie tree burns giving off very noxious fumes which will tarnish any food giving the consumer fairly immediate and serious dysentery like symptoms.
Food safe oil. Coating wood with food safe oil has no effect on wood at all, its merely that it is better for children to stick in their mouths and was born out of what is now EN 71, a Toy Standard safety, than other oils, which, despite it being a consumed oil by many, Walnut Oil is food safe as it is an oil for consumption, but because there are many who have developed nut allergyies, there is no chance that the Health and Safety police will even consider it being food safe.
So, dont inhale it, eat it, shove it anywhere your body is not designed or meant to receive it and you stand a good chance of dying of something less interesting and more common.
There is no wood that is dangerous that we come across (that I am aware of!!) that is poisonous. Wood will not do you any harm. If you chose to inhale it, ingest it, or absorb it within your body by means weird or kinky, then your body is likely to react.
Your body was designed not to run on Ash dust, Yew Sandwiches or internal leg splints of oak, and as such your bodies natural reactions are to reject those substances or particles. This can result in vomiting or diahorrea. If you breathe it your body might produce fluid in your lungs in an attempt to reject the impostor, this is called pneumonia!
With that in mind please dont eat, drink, breathe wood or its derivatives and god willing, you should see next Christmas.
A few myths. Laburnum is not poisonous. Since records began in the late 1940s, there has not been one proven case of Laburnum poisoning. 2-3,000 precautionary admissions occur in NHS hospitals each year because little johnny went within twenty feet of a laburnum tree and has a dodgy stomach, nothing to do with where he stuck his fingers in the dirt no doubt or that the pet has worms! Laburnum seeds are deemed poisonous. They might make you ill, they are not designed to be eaten! If you eat them your body will reject them!
Yew. Yew has been known to kill people. Please do not do what these people did by sitting down to a slap up Yew tree picnic with the intention of committing suicide. Yew foliage can kill you as will a good supper of boiled tar, but surprisingly that wasnt designed to be eaten either. Yew wood is not proven to be poisonous, indeed the cancer drug Tamoxifen was derived from the Yew tree and takes its name from the latin for yew, Taxus baccata. If you are a horse and you see a tasty yew tree, its definately not your day because you are a stupid animal who finds a poisonous tree tasty. It will kill you. Best no to try and run in the 3.40 at Anfield and you might be OK.
Wenge (Pronounced wen gay,) will upset you just like any other wood, if you get splinters. However, the onset of septacemia is rather quicker if you should decide not to remove the splinters. Hint, take the splinters out and bathe with TCP.
Tambootie. Should you find one of these trees, native to the Zulu Natal area, growing just off the Croydon bypass, please dont nick any branches to burn on your barbeque. The wood of the tambootie tree burns giving off very noxious fumes which will tarnish any food giving the consumer fairly immediate and serious dysentery like symptoms.
Food safe oil. Coating wood with food safe oil has no effect on wood at all, its merely that it is better for children to stick in their mouths and was born out of what is now EN 71, a Toy Standard safety, than other oils, which, despite it being a consumed oil by many, Walnut Oil is food safe as it is an oil for consumption, but because there are many who have developed nut allergyies, there is no chance that the Health and Safety police will even consider it being food safe.
So, dont inhale it, eat it, shove it anywhere your body is not designed or meant to receive it and you stand a good chance of dying of something less interesting and more common.
Lons
Fellow
Dammit Neil ! I thought I'd identified a business opportunity for supplying wooden dildos.
Back to the drawing board. 
Neil
Fellow
Dammit Neil ! I thought I'd identified a business opportunity for supplying wooden dildos.
Well, believe it or not there is a good business to be had out of the deviant sector. I was talking to Peter Helmsley in Toolpost about nine months ago chatting about the wood market and I asked him why he was selling 35mm spinsle squares of exceptional quality, all cocobolo. I asked him why the odd size. Simply, he told me that he had one notable customer who made whip handles from Cocobolo. They retailed at an absolute fortune, obviously a good flogging with a quality bit of kit makes for a more enjoyable time. Unfortunatley there had been a cock up (no pun) and the chap cutting the customers stock had got carried away so Peter was trying to sell it off. The whip handles were dual purpose apparently, sorry Bob, someone has already been there!
Neil
Fellow
Dammit Neil ! I thought I'd identified a business opportunity for supplying wooden dildos.
BOB - check this out hahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!
The Wooden Wang Workshop, Buy quality hand made wooden dildos. Wooden Dildo, wooden buttplug, wooden spanking paddles, wooden whips.
Lons
Fellow
Bloody hell Neil, I was joking!
Bet those ones haven't been approved for HSE reasons. Or maybe splinters are an added benefit?
I especially like the description "wood wang one offs"
Bet those ones haven't been approved for HSE reasons. Or maybe splinters are an added benefit?
I especially like the description "wood wang one offs"
Midnightlunchbox
Registered
So the question begs Neil, did you have that website saved as a favourite or did you google it for the purpose of the thread?
Neil
Fellow
So the question begs Neil, did you have that website saved as a favourite or did you google it for the purpose of the thread?
Why would I boolmark it? Dont think the quality of the turning is that good, I'd make my own!
Neil
Fellow
Now theres an idea for the next competition!!
Lons
Fellow
especially no butt bungs :nonono:
Neil
Fellow
I wonder if they do club demonstrations
Don't know about clubbing Paul but they might be up for spanking or whipping!