Hardwood availability

[Bob McCarty]

On some of my horsedrawn implement restorations, I need 4"x6" hardwood stock and wide planks. Here in Colorado, if its not fir, spruce, or pine, you're paying for furniture quality lumber. I've often wished I could take apart some oak pallets, except for the 40 ring shank nails. To those of you in the Midwest or South, can you get construction grade hardwood (or whatever you would call it) at the lumberyard or do you have the same problem I do?
Thanks, Bob

[Carm]

We just built a bridge out of white oak. We just go to a local sawmill and he can get us anything we need. He bought a black walnut from us that fell in a storm. Not really available in a lumberyard though.

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Eastern white oak was largely decimated here in PA and NY by the Gypsy moths in the 1970's. While not totally extinct. It is a rare find.

Cousin has a sawmill (Farmall H powered, BTW). Take him a log and he'll cut it for me (at his liesure, of course). There's a lot of red oak still here, and walnut is pretty common. Mostly what is local, though, is hemlock, which doesn't rot as fast as SPF, but is still a coniferous wood. Uncles always used hemlock for everything, and painted it with old motor oil as a preservative. Looked like crap, but lasted forever.

[WKPoor]

Ash is very plentiful here and is a good hard staight grained wood. Like others here in the midwest I too have my own sawed mostly now by the Amish. A few yrs ago I could buy whole logs from the Amish and have it sawed to my liking for $30.00. Of course it then needed to be stickered and dried before use and there would be about 20% that would swist or warp. It was still cheep!!!

[ljw]

I am in SW Ohio and ash is plentiful. But a while back I remember talk of a blight that is attacking ash is making its way south from Michigan. But I haven't heard any updates on the info. I have always looked for walnut trees to have rough sawn. Years ago there was a sawmill in Okeana, OH that had the old time sawmill. It has been shut down for several years now. The last time I had a felled tree, I went to a guy that had an outfit with a bandsaw. It wasn't the same, both in cost and experience. I winced everytime the blade sparked. I was charged extra for damaged blades! I couldn't blame him, but it really brought home the differences between trees growing in the woods and trees out of somebody's front yard. If you frequent farm auctions you can find old rough sawn lumber, mostly oak, in varying quantities. I buy it every chance I can get it reasonable. Most people don't want to load it and haul it off, no matter the price. Larry

[rondellh]

Larry the plague of the ash is the Emerald Ash Borer. An insect that came here from Asia in Pallets. It is destroying every ash tree it finds.
I talked to a fellow from the USDA in Clevland last spring about it.
He said Michigan is lost and they are trying to save the rest of the country.
It is in Ohio and Illinois now. It's travel is accelerated by the firewood industry distributing contaminated wood to ares that aren't contaminted.
I really am not too optomistic that they will save the ash though.
You can find all about it by google search on Emerald Ash borer.

Rondell

[John(videodoc)]

as to the ash thing, we live in southern illinois and had a forester come in and appraise our forest, he advised us to sell all ash, regardless of size, due to the coming infestation. so when the trees went up for auction couple months ago, even the smaller ash were included. just as well get something out of em. they sold, not a good price, but sold.

as to construction grade hardwood, look for a local saw mill. see if they got what you need. they proabably do, and will supply it at a fir price. least thats been my expericene round here. having to build a trailer in the spring, looking to use oak or similiar hardwood, got the mill picked out. as i am familiar with their pricing, and they will go thick on the boards.

john

[John(videodoc)]

just noticed your in Colo, GO BRONCO's. I'll be out that way in June for a week of training going to alamosa. sister lived in boulder for years, always loved visiting her there.

[Rudi]

Bob:

Well, here in the eastern part of Canada, oak is at a premium, cherry is non-existent, american black walnut is also a fond memorie as well as much of the other woods that would be useful to a cabinet maker. Too much was cut and exported in days gone by with little thought of re-forestation.

Fortunately, there are many like minded as myself who believe in putting back and there are beginning to be some small private stands of these rarer woods.

Now, enough dreaming..... of stock that will not be ready in my lifetime...

And to your question.

Here are a few alternatives.

Hemlock as previously mentioned, if available would be a good choice. Does not rot as fast as spf and has quite a high specific density.

Tamarack is also a good choice. It is similar to hemlock as far as durability, it's specific density is also high and it has great structural properties. It is a wood of choice in many areas for framing barns etc...

Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, Redwoods etc., are also good choices. primarily because of there ability to resist rot, structural strenght - good compression/deflection and torsion properties and lucky for some in the west are also readily available.

Yellow Pine also is an excellent choice. Dense, strong and versatile whilst easily machineable to a degree, this member of the pine family is highly prized for use in making floors, framing, heavy tool benches and lathes (yes - lathes especially for bowl turning) and will apply itself quite readily to your needs.

There are lots of species that should be available in your area that are local to your region and relatively well priced. You can check with the American Lumber Bureau on-line I think. I have an old well used copy of the ALB Structural Timber Guide which has served me well for nigh on to 35 years now.. a little out of date, but relevant nonetheless...

If nothing really strikes your fancy.... do remember that there have been improvements over the years in some timber available to the public.. Keep in mind that pressure treated stock is available in larger dimension sizes as well as raw stock as well prior to going through the preservation process.

Do be aware though that some varieties of PT can contain such wonderful additives as arsenic, creosote, pentaflouride and a host of other lovely ingredients. If you go the PT route, then I would suggest seeking out the more friendlier forms.

Hope this helps a bit....

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Hemlock as previously mentioned, if available would be a good choice. Does not rot as fast as spf and has quite a high specific density.

When I was landscaping (backwhen my body actually worked.. ), we had the opportunity to buy CCA treated hemlock landscaping timbers in 10X10 12ft size (it varied greatly), produced locally here. The price was less than half that of PT SPF timbers. We used them as fast as they could make them, and built retaining walls by the dozen. The downside is that it took me, and 3 high-school football players that we hired for the summer, to put them in place. Each weighed approximately 300 lbs. As we nailed them in place with barn spikes, the "juice" would fly out of them. This was a combination of hemlock's resistance to drying and improper drying after pressure treating. Hemlock, thankfully, does not warp much when left to dry in the open.

I burn a great deal of hemlock slabs, actually. They're not all that resinous, despite being a conifer. They're not safe to use as firewood outdoors, though, because they "pop" and spark something fierce. In a stove, though, they're great.

There are a great many "ancient" hemlocks around here, in original forest areas at the bottom of valleys where streams run. They seem to like the water, and have massive root systems. Hemlocks, like black walnuts, produce chemicals in their roots, hampering the ability of other trees to grow. This, in nature, results in "hemlock groves" where acres of these massive trees climb upwards to 80 ft or more, and live for centuries. When I was a boy, I used to help my great uncles "top" the 30 footers, as the growing tops of this sized tree are a nearly perfect, soft, christmas tree. They used to sell these "tops" as christmas trees on their milk route, back before christmas tree farms were the "in" thing, for $3. I was always too fat to climb the trees (so where they, but if I fell out of a tree, their sister would have killed them), but I'd help haul out the tops to the wagon. In those days, everyone put up their tree on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and left it up until Epiphany, so hemlocks were a good choice, as they didn't lose their needles very quickly, either.

Some 35 years later, my cousin is dealing with the repercussions of topping hundreds of hemlocks. He is sawing the logs from those trees, which now have a nasty crotch in them. Oh well, more firewood for me.

The downside to these magnificent trees is that the sawdust from them cannot be used for horse or pig bedding, as it is toxic to monogastrics. I've used it for chicken and duck litter already, though, with no unpleasant side effects.

One last thing about hemlocks: The stumps are a great substrate for the fungus that creates the visual illusion called "fox fire". I've only ever seen it here in hemlock groves, on rotting hemlock stumps.

[Paul B]

rjmac,
To answer your question, even east of the Mississippi River, hardwood found at most lumber yards will be surfaced, furniture grade. Hardwoods of other grades will normally have to be bought from a sawmill somewhere, and usually be green and will have to be dried before use.

I love Colorado, the evergreen trees and the Aspen in the fall are beautiful, but I sure missed the fall colors of the hardwood trees of the east. I often though of a business venture of hauling eastern hardwood firewood to that area, since all the firewood I saw was from evergreen trees and had to be aged a couple of years before it could be safely burnt in a fireplace because of the resin/pitch it contained.

[jakeesspoo]

I live here in northern ohio about an hour from michigan and the emerald ash borer recently was found here, in fact right down the road from me. I dont have any trees really in my yard being that Im sitting on top of a old quarry, litterally,(my house was built in the 1840's out of fieldstone from it) but right down the road at Wousickett golf course the state put out some test trees and they came back positive for infestation An engineer I work with has what you could call a small nursery on his property and said he has roughly 300 small trees he will have to cut down and burn for wood or they will just die. He told me that they are airborn and can fly a distance of roughly half a mile so he's probally already infested he says. And from what I understand the hauling of wood was a large part of it. While I know this cannot be good hopefully it wont be as bad as it sounds. I remeber when the lake first started getting zebra mussles and it sounded like the end of the world. Now there talking about some of the benefits of them (although I think the disadvantages far outnumber them) We also have a lot of Gobys in the lake now and I dont know anything those nasty things are good for, the seagulls wont even eat them, we catch them a lot perch fishing. Obviously all these things are naturally not supposed to be here so its a shame that they are,I guess thats the price you have to pay for convenience...

[cowboy]

Hate to have to say it but the emrald ash bore is as bad as they are saying. In this area it is in the process of wiping out all the ash trees. The cities cannot keep up with cutting the dead trees in peaples front yards. It has killed almost all the ash trees around my cousins 10 acers. I think I have heard of developing insecticde for it but do not know much about it. I do know the fed gov took all the funds for fighting the japineze beetle and transfered to programs to fight the emrald ash borer.

Billy

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

Wouldn't it be nice if none of these "transplants" ever took hold.

I suppose, in a world where global trade is becoming so common, we will eventually all have the same ecosystem, with virtually all the same creatures and plants.

In the new world, we have imported everything imaginable, starting with the very first settlers from europe bringing rats and disease to the Americas.

When you think about all the pests and diseases that are spread from one part of the world to the other, it's really horrible. Even in australia and tazmania, separated by a mere 40 miles of ocean, the introduction of dingos to tazmania caused the extinction of the tazmanian tiger in the early part of the 20th century. We have amazon and african fish populations living in florida waterways now, some of which are downright dangerous.

The oceans of the world have always had a homogenous ecosystem, having no natural boundaries, and now, the land of the world is will be the same. The Japanese beetle, while not the worst pest in the world, is virtually worldwide, now, I understand, and although they do not cause much harm in some areas, they certainly do in others. We have weeds like kudzu now, and a new one that I haven't identified yet, but is a member of the cucumber family, and although an annual, spreads something fierce. I'm afraid to think it, but it may be the bastard offspring of a hybrid cucumis member, that produces no fruit, but only spiny seedpods.

There are reasons we shouldn't tamper with the natural order of things. Hybrids and GMO's can and will be dangerous, and I try and avoid planting them at all costs.

I can't wait to see what these new genetically modified soybean varieties will do once they go heretic, and jump the fence.

[George Willer]

There are reasons we shouldn't tamper with the natural order of things. Hybrids and GMO's can and will be dangerous, and I try and avoid planting them at all costs.

I can't wait to see what these new genetically modified soybean varieties will do once they go heretic, and jump the fence.

Tom,

I'm disappointed that I'll lose (note correct spelling) all my ash trees, but there is another side to the issue. For one thing, the government will stop wasting money fighting an impossible battle against the emerald ash borer, even though they know spending these huge sums is hopeless.

More importantly, our economy couldn't even function without the huge benefit of many modified species. Take corn, for example. What kind of yields do you imagine we would have if we were still growing only the same varieties the natives were growing before Europeans came to this country. 10 bu/A? Not very likely. Could we even feed the world without the scientifically modified original creations?

What kind of milk production could we expect from feral cattle compared to Holsteins? Pork production of javilinas compared to the modern developed hog breeds? There are many examples where technology has improved the world for us, and genetic modification offers much promise.

The Good Lord gave us the ability to change things for the better. We are better served by using that ability wisely than blindly rejecting it.