Olive Wood Uses, Properties, Advantages, and Disadvantages

What is olive wood?

Many people may already know that olive is a plant that is often used for its fruit. However, olive wood can also be useful for several things, even though it’s not widely used.

Olive is the common name for plants in the genus Olea, found in Europe and eastern Africa. Olive trees are only 25-50 feet tall and 3-5 feet trunk diameter.

It’s wood with some poor characteristics, especially in resistance and appearance. However, olive wood is still available, although it’s limited to a few things. Olive wood is commonly used for High-end furniture, veneer, and others.

The properties of olive wood

Olive heartwood is cream or fawn, with streaks that look darker. It will get darker with age. Olive wood grains tend to vary, ranging from straight, wild, or interlocked.

As for the texture, it is uniformly fine and has a medium natural luster. Olive wood is not reliable enough in decay resistance, despite the range of resistance to durability.

Not only that, but it’s also a wood that is susceptible to insect attack. Olive wood is wood with good workability, even somewhat easy to work. However, This is not wood that can be obtained cheaply.

Olive wood advantages

Easy to work: While this is a relatively easy wood, don’t expect everything to go very smoothly Because tearing may occur on interlocked or wild grains during surface operation.

It is also a wood that is considered to have poor stability, so that it may affect the quality of some finished goods. However, it is an excellent wood for turns. Not only that, but Olive wood also glues and finishes well.

It seems like you have to make good use of this wood, including doing good planning to get the desired result.

Appearance: Although it doesn’t have an extraordinary or exotic look, Olive wood is a wood with a beautiful look.

The grain figured it has quite good and varied, especially because the colors are visible because they are darker.

While it may not be of good quality for some wooden items, it’s an excellent wood for turns. You can make lots of beautiful, high-quality turned objects with some great quality wood for that.

However, it seems that carefulness in appearance is necessary to get the best, especially since the availability of Olive wood is limited.

Availability: Below, I will say that the Price Of Olive Wood is very high because people prefer to use fruit instead of wood.

Then, what about the actual availability of trees? It’s well too. That’s because Olive is not listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species or CITES Appendices.

Therefore, we can conclude that the population of this species is still good and that there is no indication of significant population reduction, vulnerability, or endangered.

The limited trade in Olive wood seems to be only because the use of the wood is limited to branches or sick/dead trees.

Olive wood Disadvantages

Low resistance: This doesn’t seem like a reliable wood in terms of resistance, and we hope you don’t expect too much from it. Due to its resistance to rot, Olive wood is reported to be not durable/perishable to durable/moderately durable.

It seems that there is a range of resistance depending on the Olive species. Not only is it low in rot resistance, but it is also susceptible to insect attack.

That’s why we think it’s a bad idea if you plan to use Olive wood for long-term use, direct contact with the ground, and other uses that require resistance.

Health risk: Although it is one of the most useful plants, especially in economic, Olive cannot be separated from health risks.

Olive is reported as a sensitizer and may not be good for or can cause some things, although severe reactions are rare. The most common reactions turned out to be just skin and eye irritation.

However, we hope you don’t take this for granted because you may have a severe reaction. That’s why make sure you prepare well, especially to prevent health effects. Also, make sure the tools and equipment you use are of good quality.

Very high price: Maybe you think that this wood is of quite poor quality, and it must be cheap or moderate in price.

Even though we had thought so, too, it didn’t happen because the Olive price is in a very high range.

This is not because it’s vulnerable, rare, or exotic, but because people prefer to use the fruit rather than the wood.

So, the wood that is sold is usually just trimmings, pruned branches, or diseased or damaged Olive trees. So, it seems rare, or even no one deliberately cultivates it to use the wood.

Olive wood for high-end furniture

Olive wood is one of the woods that is commonly used as high-end furniture. This is a very expensive wood and has several good characteristics, including its appearance.

So, it seems that this is very good for some luxury furniture that can make your home more beautiful.

However, we still doubt this wood due to its poor resistance to rot and susceptibility to insect attacks.

That’s why we hope you think about it again before deciding to use this wood. Maybe you can use White oak or Ash, or even some rare exotic wood.

Olive wood for veneer

If you don’t have enough money for high-end furniture, then the veneer is a good choice. Although there may be many problems when working, the wood appearance is good, especially on wild or interlocked grains.

We hope you finish well because we believe it’s great for layering up some less pleasing things to the eye.

If you want to make it yourself, maybe you will have quite a bit of trouble, because of the availability.

Not only that, the lumber size that is suitable for veneers doesn’t seem to be easy to get unless you buy the tree directly.

Olive wood for turned objects

This is an excellent wood for turns, and we believe we can produce good quality turned objects with great artistic value.

Expect to be able to get Olive wood with a unique and different appearance from the others. Then you can make some good decorative items for decoration.

However, we hope you can do it well to become a great finished item because this is very expensive wood. Don’t forget to plan well, and try making a wooden bowl as an experiment.

We think it’s going to be a great start for you.

Olive wood for kitchen utensils

You can also use Olivewood to make kitchen utensils, although we don’t think this is the best choice. But if you do, it looks like it’s going to be pretty good and can last quite a while.

Not only that, but it’s also an easy wood to work with, and it’s unlikely that you’ll have a problem making your kitchen utensils by yourself.

It could be the best wooden kitchen utensils you have, only if you do it well. Doing the turning to make it is a good option.

Olive wood for cutting boards

The last option in this article is to use Olivewood for cutting boards. You also think this is a good option if you want to make your own.

The quality of this wood seems pretty good for it, although we think its low resistance to decay could be an issue. So, it looks like you have to find Olive wood that is durable in rot resistance.

In terms of workability and availability, there doesn’t seem to be any major problem, as this wood is somewhat easy to work, and the need for cutting boards is not much.