After my last post I had some feedback about the range of colours in my latest batch of butter knives. Believe it or not these items are all from the same birch tree. Uncovering the colour variation in wood is one of the real joys of green wood working. One source of colour variation is the growth rings that are used to age the tree. As trunk growth speeds up at the start of spring the wood tends to be a lighter colour and as growth slows down in winter the colour darkens leaving distinct lines.
The other source of colour variation is the transition from sapwood to heartwood. Sapwood is the younger, outermost, layer of the tree trunk which transfers water from the roots to the leaves. As the tree ages and new layers are added to the sapwood the inner layers are transformed to a darker heartwood.
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