Red-barked Bloodwood

    (Corymbia erythrophloia )

Also known as: Gum-topped Bloodwood, Variable-barked Bloodwood

Red Barked Bloodwood appears mainly on low country in better soils and is common on the Highlands. Usually growing to around 10 to 12 metres high, it's shorter main trunk reaches to around 600mm diameter in this region.

Red-barked Bloodwood is one of the most prolific flowerers on the Central Highlands and always puts on a good show around February. . . which is just as well because it's not much use for anything else!

Red Barked Bloodwood timber is absolute rubbish for woodworking of any type! The concentric gum veins allow the layers to separate and peel apart like a withering rose. About as stable as feathers in a cyclone, it barely even makes the grade as firewood! Machining, sanding and finishing this timber is much like any other gum species.

This bowl started out from a crotch blank which should have produced a bowl about 400mm diameter but by the time I cut off all the loose stuff, I was left with a shallow 200mm blank. Turned, finished and photographed in one day, within a week there were edges curling up along the gum-veins spoiling it beyond use/sale. A couple of months later the edges hadn't moved much further which leads me to think it could be refinished but what's the point - it's still rubbish timber at the end of the day!

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