Someone wants me to build a bench out of Larch they found in their father's workshop.
From what I have read, larch is a perfectly good wood as long as you avoid the knots. It simply isn't particulary attractive. Would that be about right? Any problems with it?
Thanks.
Fri, Feb 11, 2005, 8:52pm (EST+5) snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (toller) says: Someone wants me to build a bench out of Larch
I thought that was the butler for the Adams family. l
JOAT Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.
- David Fasold
Very prone to twist on seasoning. Apart from that it it's fine. My bench underframe is made of it, although it's too soft to make a good top. I do use it for "indoor" work on rough stuff like bech frames, but mostly it's for exterior timber framing. Being highly resinous, it lasts longer than Easter Red Cedar (UK climate).
Most stupid thing I've done in the last few years was _not_ buying 10 acres of woodland, just because I didn't like the fact it was larch. Since then I've used a lot more larch and even got quite fond of it.
Every wood has a use, well almost, and larch is for cladding, larchlap ? and furniture ? tends on the brittle, splintery spectrum so chamfer those corners . I really like the scent when working with it, less knots on the larger dimensions, bit tricky planing. And for a bit of trivia, Venice is sitting on a bed of larch.
They had a lot of it locally. "Venice turpentine" is a turpentine distilled from larch, rather than another softwood.
U--u--u--u--n--n--n--n--n--n--h
Ok...because no one ELSE has done it....
!!!!THE LARCH!!!!
(Shades of Monty Python).
Regards dave Mundt
Dammit JOAT, I was just getting ready to say that.
I think his name was " Lurch"
Of course, Andy's stuff is European, but ought to be close. Western is lumped with Douglas fir in the trade, which is a pretty good indicator of what it's like. Eastern might as well be a different tree when close grown versus open grown. Open grows right and left twists between alternate spread of branches, and is therefore a perfect bitch to control. Close grown loses the habit in favor of racing for the light in competition with others. It's some pretty stuff, though a touch yellower than DF.
Up here it was the preferred wood for mine lagging. I've about eight acres or so where it thrives in the transition between higher hardwood and lower swamp conifers.
Sat, Feb 12, 2005, 12:59pm (EST-1) snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net claims: I think his name was " Lurch"
You're getting him confused with a tree.
JOAT Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.
- David Fasold
Hi Guys, I have to disagree with the guy that said it is not a nice looking wood. I have a floor in my den made with larch and I have received many compliments and most of those people have since install a larch floor themselves. The only problem that I have had with the floor is under my computer chair, those little wheels will raise hell out of a wood floor so I had to go to staples and buy a plastic mat.
My floor is wide boards, screwed down and plugged on top. The only problem I had was that I did all the planing myself and I should have made a jig for the planer to hold the boards on edge. Some of them rolled on me and made the edge less than 90 degrees and as a result I had some cracks. The main thing with larch, you MUST keep it out of the sun. It will twist like hell in the sun in just one day. I had the mill save them for me and keep them inside out of the sun and I would pick up whatever they had every week. They did not have a lot, they were just a few logs mixed with the spruce. I am in Nova Scotia Canada and our Larch, is also know as hamatack, tamerack and some idiots call in juniper but juniper is a bush around here. It was hard to plane, simply because it is an oily wood and the feed roller did not want to feed it. I solved that problem and I would not do without it. I bolted a 1/8 inch high density plastic on the two front corners and I have never push another piece thought the planer. It does bow up between the bolts but it flattens when you feed wood in. I never had to clean the shaving underneath. I have told other people that had feeding problems about my cure and they tried it and they would not do without it now. It is cheap and makes a day in the shop a lot more enjoyable.
Eric
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