The Use of Red Alder Wood in Crafts

Image by MonikaP from Pixaba

Here grew willows and alders, their trunks twisted like giants’ sinews. Around them bark lichen bloomed blue-white in the darkness. It felt like a good place, where there was old magic. 

-Duncan Harper, “Witch of the Fall”

We were searching for pinecones in the tall grass and brush beneath our twenty-acre stand of Ponderosa pine when we stepped out of the pines into a glade with a small group of elderly red alder, big and tall, in the center. They were covered in lichen and moss, and branches had fallen in a recent windstorm. We took a photo of a strange looking mushroom growing out of a hole in one of the trees. 

The glade we stepped into did seem a bit magical, like the quote from the fantasy book above, although I’m more inclined to C.S. Lewis’s “deep magic” of the Narnia tales, that points back to Christianity rather than paganism. Nature is God’s handiwork, thank you very much. The alder seems like a mystical tree, though, with wood that turns red after being cut. The ancient Celts venerated it, and it was associated with various pagan deities. 

Red alder is common in the Pacific Northwest and our property has alder near every wet spot. Years ago, I recall learning that alder might be marketable for paint brush handles; now it competes with Douglas fir in market price and we sell a bit when we harvest. It is used for the brush handles, still, but also furniture, cabinets, trim, and paneling. 

And get this! Fender has used alder to make their electric guitar bodies since the 1950’s! 

It has other benefits. Traditionally, in the Pacific Northwest, it was used to smoke salmon. The bark, which contains salicon, can be used as a tea to reduce inflammation, or rubbed on the skin to ease the pain of poison oak or insect bites. 

Walking stick by the author

Alder is a member of the birch family and is unusual in a number of ways. Like birch, it is monoecious – that is, it has male and female flowers (calkins) on the same tree. The leaves do not change color in the fall but are shed still green. It adds nitrogen to the ground, and the rotting leaves are a great soil amendment.

Alderwood candleholder

And it is beautiful, both the tree with the distinctive calkins, and the pale, straight-grained wood. We have found a number of craft uses for alder and plan to experiment with more. The young trees or branches make great walking sticks. They dry straight if stored properly and are very strong and light-weight for hiking sticks. The straight grain lends itself well to decorating either by carving, paint or woodburning, and we have done all of that. The bark, in addition to being medicinal, makes a good dye. The alder dye batch we tried, on pure hand-spun wool, was a nice beige color. 

At one point we attempted to make jewelry from the small female alder cones, using electroplating. 

Adler round coasters

Currently we use alder rounds, or “cookies,” in a variety of ways, including crafting candleholders and making coaster sets. We use decoupage on the coasters to either transfer an image, or to just affix one. These are then coated with both decoupage and Verathane for protection. There are plans afoot to use pyrography (woodburning) on the coasters as well. 

And…so much more. The red alder is amazing and versatile and somewhat overlooked in crafts, but I would predict it will gain in popularity in future days. 

In the meantime, it is a nice tree to have in the woods...
Margaret