Pear Wood  

Dear SDR,
I can only guess...but there is a long tradition in using pear wood for tooling. The most prominent one is, or was...the art of making foundry patterns for sand moulds. Although this might be far from the clamps you are showing the reason behind it might be the same: dimensional stability in changing relative humidity. Another consideration might be an advise my father always gave us, to use a softer wood to clamp another piece of wood in order not to leave an imprint in the piece of wood you where working on. I suspect that pear wood is about the closest you can get to a compromise between strength and softness of surface. I agree that in this case you would not clamp the instrument directly with the clamp but in the process of doing it you might very well hit the piece with your clamp. Does it make sense?
...it might just be the smell...

Hi Koen! Thanks.. It would...
Hi Koen! Thanks.. It would be wonderful if your friend made those utensils in pear wood. But maple wood is also good as we eat maple syrup. Basically we should use wood from fruit trees for kitchen tools.. I took back the pestle I had bought to the shop and got a porcelain salad bowl instead, because I kept thinking.. we can't crush vegetable in a tool that is made of a kind of wood that we don't know..
.. in fact thinking about the relation that the story may have with real episodes, an interpretation could be:
some careless housewives bought some kitchen tools from fraudsters or inexperienced carvers and issued them to the whole village. (That could be the metaphor of the witches disguised as retailers). The kitchen tools were made of wood from poisonous plants; (that could be why everyone started to feel dizzy).
Another housewife, who had some knowledge of craft, organised for the toxic utensils to be replaced with the non-toxic ones. (That could be the metaphor of the fairy). She might also have been an artist instead of a housewife. In Medieval time Italy had many female painters like Giovanna Garzoni (see pictures underneath).
Today I have read in Wikipedia-it that pears are the lest allergising fruits there is. That also reinforces the concept that pear wood utensils are a very extreme contrary of poisonous ones.
One of my cousins has just phoned me and told me that he has found some in Milan. I'm really curious to see what they look like.
Note: the third picture also has a little mouse like many fairy tales.

I'll put the third picture...
I'll put the third picture here to avoid the horizontal scroll where there is the text.

Hi Antonella
If you would like me to persue this, and I certainly would do it with all kind of pleasures, would you mind droping a line to DA: contact@designaddict.com They will forward it to me. I am sure Tom will make the ones you select in his catalogue as long as I provide him with the pear wood, which I will! If your selection is within reason, you can consider it a Christmas present from one addict to another!
http://www.littledeer.ca/en/products

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Your father gave good advice (soft clamp on harder wood). Actually, the pearwood clamps as above have a cork pad glued to both clamping surfaces. . .
Does anyone know of a tree whose wood is poisonous to humans, in very small doses ? I don't.

Sycomore is not deadly...
..in any way but can cause serious bleeding. It affects the possibility of blood to coagulate?but this reaction is by no means general?so, I will have to look it up.

First thing that comes to min...
First thing that comes to mind is poision oak.

Just a small
plant, like poison ivy ? Not a tree, surely. . .

Oleanders were grown here...
Oleanders were grown here as a street tree for many years but after several deaths have mostly been removed, another is the Datura, see link. There is also the Australian Black Bean, I've worked some of the timber and it is amazingly irritating, beautiful tree and wood though.
I'm sure there are more, some rosewoods?
http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/curric
/stage4_5/nativeplants/gallery/blackbean/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium_oleander
Not quite what you are after but found this:
Afromosia: irritant/eye & skin, respiratory/great/dust/rare
Alder: irritant/eye & skin, respiratory
Angelico: irritant/eye & skin, respiratory/great/dust
Arborvitae: irritant/respiratory
Ash: irritant/respiratory
Baldcypress: sensitizer/respiratory/small/dust/rare
Balsam fir: sensitizer/eye & skin/small/dust/rare
Beech: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust/rare
Birch: sensitizer/respiratory, nausea/great/dust, wood/rare
Black locust: irritant/nausea/great/rare
Blackwood: sensitizer/eye & skin/great/dust, wood/common
Boxwood: sensitizer/respiratory/small/dust, wood/rare
Cashew: sensitizer/eye & skin/great/dust, wood/rare
Chechem: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust, wood/unknown
Cocobolo: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust, wood/common
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium

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Dahoma: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust/common
Ebony: irritant, sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust, wood/common
Elm: sensitizer/eye & skin/small/dust/rare
Fir: irritant/eye & skin/small/rare
Goncolo alves: sensitizer/eye & skin/small/dust, wood/rare
Greenheart: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/extreme/dust, wood/common
Guarea: sensitizer/eye & skin/extreme/dust/rare
Hemlock: nasal cancer/great/dust/rare
Ipe: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin
Iroko: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/extreme/dust, wood/common
Katon: irritant/respiratory
Kingwood: irritant/eye & skin
Mahogany, American: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/small/dust/rare
Mahogany, African: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust/rare
Makore: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin
Mansonia: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/extreme/dust, wood/common
Manzinilla: irritant/respiratory/dust/rare
Maple: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust, wood/rare
Mimosa: irritant/nasal/extreme/dust, wood/common
Myrtle: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust, wood/common
Oak, red: nasal/great/dust/rare
Obeche: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust/common
Olivewood: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust, wood/common
Opepe: sensitizer/respiratory/small/dust/rare
Orangewood: respiratory/rare
Padauk: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin, nausea/extreme/dust, wood/common
Pau ferro: sensitizer/eye & skin/small/dust, wood/rare
Peroba rose: sensitizer/respiratory/great/dust, wood/common
Peroba white: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin
Purpleheart: sensitizer/eye & skin, nausea/small/dust, wood/rare
Quebracho: nasal cancer/great/dust/rare
Ramin: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/small/dust/rare
Redwood: sensitizer/respiratory, nasal cancer/small/dust/rare
Rosewood(s): irritant, sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/extreme/dust, wood/common
Satinwood: irritant/respiratory, eye & skin/extreme/dust, wood/common
Sassafras: sensitizer/respiratory, nausea, nasal cancer/small/dust, wood/rare
Sequoia: irritant/respiratory, nasal cancer/small/dust, wood/rare
Snakewood: irritant/respiratory/great/dust, wood/rare
Spruce: sensitizer/respiratory/small/dust, wood/rare
Stavewood: irritant/respiratory
Sucupira: irritant/respiratory
Teak: sensitizer/eye & skin/extreme/dust/common
Walnut, black: sensitizer/eye & skin/great/leaves & bark/unknown
Wenge: sensitizer/respiratory, eye & skin/great/dust/common
Willow: sensitizer/nasal cancer/great/dust/unknown
W. redcedar: sensitizer/respiratory, nasal cancer/great/dust/common
Yew, Europe: irritant/eye & skin/great/dust/common
Zebrawood: sensitizer/eye & skin/great/dust/rare

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By the way SDR just a question what thicknesser are you using at work? I'm buying a new one and just can't decide, I'm thinking a Dewalt.

A friend of mine
has been in the hospital twice, two years apart, from a common
little splinter. He has a bad reaction to luan, a pesky product often
called Philippine mahogany. Not mahogany at all but any one of a large number of species that are lumped together and sold as Philippine mahogany. His
allergic reaction was of an unknown species.
Working with wood and plants i do find some splinters and thorns have a
more immediate reaction. I keep a black draw-out salve in my bag.
Contains ichthammol and smells of pine tar. The hospital used the same
stuff while monitoring all the other organs affected.
We have a couple planers Heath. A monster Delta and a more portable
Dewalt. Get the widest you can afford. Dewalt is a good standard in the
business. Both of ours are sometimes running all day long. We always have
an elder, a woodworker near retirement, just on tool maintenance.
Important to keep it sharp.
Love the pear wood story. Finding a select piece every year could be a grand
tradition.
My mother-in-law recently gave me one of her rolling pins.
Of all the kitchen tools i have and most poor designed, my favorite is
one my mother gave me years ago. Probably teak. It is thin, flat-topped,
but curved edges. Does it all except ladle.

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Cheers Rockland, I didn't know you were in the industry.
Australians and North Americans have different terms for planers and thicknessers, this is what I want, is it this or the previous model that you use? Its this or an $8000.00 Felder which I really can't afford.
It seems the de walt is one of the few machines capable of cutting down these ridiculously hard Eucalypts.

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wow. prices have really come down.
This is our Delta. We have an earlier model.
And a workhorse. The blades have two edges and easily switched and
rotated.
Not sure eucalyptus likes a power planer? No experience with it.
A planer does one thing really well if set up properly. Level surfaces...
the table jig set-up. Sniping issues. And much material loss.
Depending on your log size? Would cutting down on a bandsaw and hand
planing be more valuable? Not sure.
A re-sawing bandsaw. Big power.
So many different tools needed for specific jobs.
A bit of research i suppose. Or someone consulted that has that specific
experience.
We felled some large trees and need a to have a traveling mill visit in the
spring.
And our farm in the Catskill Mnts has large old fruit trees that we have
played with. I've got the attention span of a gypsy moth. Fortunately
my work is problem solving. No day the same.
http://www.amazon.com/DELTA-ShopMaster-TP305-2-Inch-Portable/dp/B0007DFW...

My god that is cheap, unfortu...
My god that is cheap, unfortuantely Delta no longer export to Australia and because of voltage importing privately isn't really an option.
I've got a bench planer already on a combination machine (you call it a buzzer?) and really don't have the time or inclination to plane down by hand...I think I will get the Dewalt but at $1100.00 AU its crazy expensive compared to the Delta.
Sound like my attention span is much like yours! Though setting up this shop has really forced me to focus and learn a hell of a lot.
A portable mill, that would be so nice 🙂
Apologies for taking the thread off track, is there a pear tree on your farm? Some of your fruitwoods might be quite valuable.