Interesting piano. Wild Olive?

[johnnyrsa]

I took a trip to Kimberley over the weekend and visited the Big Hole Diamond Mine museum. Saw this old piano in one of the old buildings, looks like it was made out of solid wild olivewood (olea europaea subsp. africana). I would love to make a couple of saw and plane handles out of this wood.


A few other photos I took: The sun was a bit bright so excuse the quality..

[Sebastiaan56]

Wild Olive, now there is a challenge for hand tools. Ive turned some and it finishes beautifully but with a hand plane?

[Bob Whitworth]

I don’t know about the olive you are talking about but there is a native rainforest olive, Olea paniculate which is very dense and hard. Maybe you could try using that. I did cut a couple of small logs of them a few days ago.

[johnnyrsa]

I don’t know about the olive you are talking about but there is a native rainforest olive, Olea paniculate which is very dense and hard. Maybe you could try using that. I did cut a couple of small logs of them a few days ago.

Wild Olive trees are actually quite common here in South Africa, or at least they are here in Bloemfontein where I live. There are literally thousands of them growing all over town but with it being an indigenous tree one isn't allowed to just cut one down or face a big fine. They also don't get very big and grow rather slowly. The two wild olive trees we get here are Olea europaea subsp, africana and Olea capensis.