From the Workshop · No. 13
Olive Wood: Beauty and Challenges
Why olive's swirling grain looks incredible, and what working it in our workshop has taught us to watch for.
Olive is probably the most visually striking wood we use: warm gold with dark, swirling, almost marbled streaks. No two pieces ever look alike. It’s also the wood that has tested our patience the most.
Why we love it
- Very dense, around 2,700 lbf on the Janka scale (a published reference value), so it’s hard, heavy in the hand and resists dents.
- Fine-textured and naturally oily, which helps it take an exceptionally smooth polish.
What makes it difficult
All that beautiful figure comes from irregular, interlocked grain, and that brings real challenges.
- Cracking and checking. Olive is notorious for developing drying cracks, sometimes long after it seems dry. We only use well-seasoned stock and inspect every blank closely, again after rough turning.
- Tear-out. Swirling grain changes direction constantly, so a tool can lift fibres instead of cutting them cleanly. That means sharp tools, light cuts and extra sanding.
- Finish adhesion. The natural oils can stop some finishes bonding properly. Surface preparation before sealing matters more with olive than with almost any other wood we turn.
- Straight grain is rare. Finding a blank with the figure and sound grain along its full length means rejecting a lot of wood.
Why our design is simple
The Halo is deliberately a straight, tapered form. A simple shape lets the grain be the feature, and avoids asking a wood with wild grain to also carry a pronounced curve.
