I didn't see the pictures but from the description (and the source) I also wondered if it might not be "American Chestnut". It's pretty well extinct now but was once one of the most common construction woods in the eastern USA
I've got a couple hybrid American/Japanese chestnut trees in my yard. The catkins are falling now and the burrs will start forming soon. They make a mess and the squirrels love them... I've milled some small boards from storm damaged branches over the years with which I've made some keepsake boxes. The wood has a color and smell that is different from the various oaks and pines I've encountered over the years.
For a rustic piece the wax alone would probably be fine and it would build more character over time... though it does need reapplication based on wear. My former associate Wallace Gusler is a fan of wax and microcrystalline wax is a favorite of preservationists of not only furniture but of things like guns.
An alternative could be a stain of appropriate color that is wiped off to show the variance in the hardness of the grain and then a separate finish like polyurethane applied over it. I don't think you could get the color affect correct using a combination stain/finish while also getting a film build up.
John
On 07/06/2015 8:59 PM, John Grossbohlin wrote: ...
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I see none of the characteristic open porosity of chestnut...
Intended to add/ask--I've seen none of the new hybrids milled into lumber but I'd presume they also are open-pored? (Wouldn't seem to qualify as the chestnut part of the equation otherswise :) ).
Are the hybrids also partial to becoming wormy or has the hybridization disturbed that trend, too?
There was quite a lot of chestnut reclaimed from fallen logs in VA during the time we were in Lynchburg (late '60s/thru most '70s) so saw quite a lot of the American chestnut that way. There was one sizable specimen that survived the blight that VA Tech (VPI) foresters were protecting with their lives that got to take a field trip to visit. They went so far as to use the spy-novel expediency of using blindfolds part of the way so visitors couldn't inadvertently or on purpose reveal the location they were so serious of protecting it... :)
I don't know what became of that effort, I ought to see if can track down any of those folks any longer but it's been since in the mid '80s that last knew anything of them.
There's one American elm in splendid isolation here on the farm in far SW KS where there were so few and we were far enough from town that the Dutch elm disease didn't get it. AFAIK there are none surviving in town. It's a tough place for most trees out here, and this has only reached 30-40 ft in 70 or 80 years but it's a gorgeously-shaped specimen. Unfortunately, the American elm isn't self-fertile so while it puts out a zillion seeds every spring, none ever get pollinated to make new ones... :( All we get are a zillion of the Siberian elms every year, a very poor cousin indeed. :(
On 07/07/2015 8:07 AM, dpb wrote: ...
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Well, a search as I suspected uncovered none of the fella's I knew nearly 40 year ago but there's still a program at VPI towards the chestnut as well as the hemlocks (that are falling prey to the woolly adelgid in alarming numbers all thru the Smokys).
No articles I could find mentioned the remaining pure American chestnuts other than as seed and genetic source for current research; nothing about any sizable regrowth ones. It's amazing but even after a hundred years or so since the massacre there are still roots that do spring up shoots for a while until the blight finds them...the one that seemed to have at least sufficient natural resistance to keep it going was about
25 year estimated back then; it would be beginning-to-get-towards-majestic specimen by now if it did survive...
Did you mean: 1) No article(s) about the VA Tech protected chestnut you me ntioned, .... or 2) No articles about any true Am. Chestnut (non-hybrid) st ill surviving?
Though not an article, Wikipedia has a list of "true" survivors. Not sure how old this listing is or if it's still accurate. The individual sites ( highlighted) might have articles for their specimens.
Being naturalist minded, I wouldn't mind trying to grow some trees, despite their not being readily native to this area. They may not be so readily native, here, because other more dominate southern species of trees "preven ts" them from good/moderate growth, if at all, here. Maybe under protecte d growing conditions, they could grow well enough, here.
I see one nursery won't ship seedlings/saplings to Louisiana, but Louisiana only quarantines the Chinese chestnut.... The seeds aren't quarantined, wh ich I find odd. I'd like to get some non-hybridized Am. Chestnut seeds. Some venues/foundations require I be a member, to get seeds or seedlings.
Any idea how I could get some seeds for the native American Chestnut?
With some of the online outlets/nurseries (descriptions), I'm not sure if I 'd get seeds of the non-hybridized variety. I'd prefer to order/purchase from a reliable source.
Sonny
Agreed. Here's a pretty good article:
To me, "yellow" pine is a bad characterization for a large group of timbers , all lumped together as a group. Other "YP" lists include other species of pines, as listed above, as well. And if yer from the south, it would be yaller pines.
But long leaf pine is different and distinguishable, despite what that arti cle says. Long leaf pine has a distinct redness about it, also, especiall y the heartwood.
I'll agree with that, too. I think we kinna got skewered with each our tra in of thought. I was thinking table tops, flooring and other often-used s urfaces, where surfaces generally need to be hard and tough. The premium hard (surface) pine would be LLP.
White pine superior for other uses: Yep. Works well, finishes well, look s great, too, for detailed milling for all kinds of interior applications, cabnets, etc. If you tried to mill YP for detailed work, like moldings, fr ames, etc., you'd get resin caked and/or burned onto your cutters, saw blad es, rollers, etc. The heartwood of LLP (less resin) works much better tha n the other YPs.
Sonny
On 07/07/2015 6:00 PM, Sonny wrote: ...
Yes; I thought that was clear in context of the (albeit one-sided :) ) conversation...
Sonny wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
More resin in longleaf, I think. I've been told of people searching out longleaf stumps for lighterwood, because there's so much resin, even decades after the tree was cut.
But you can get lighterwood and that reddish heartwood in other yellow pines too, just not so much of it.
John
On 07/07/2015 6:00 PM, Sonny wrote: ...
I'd probably contact VPI or one of the other researchers and see altho it may be a nationwide (or nearly so if not on a state-by-state basis) constraint against shipping the native cultivars in order to minimize blight risk. I've not looked into what there is or is not available to general public.
It's hard to get anything of quality to grow out here; all the eastern/southern trees were adapted to the alkaline pine-forest soils so even the maples and oaks that we transplanted a number of times haven't made it for any length of time when combined with the temperature extremes, low moisture and wind--it's just too tough an environment. Folks have at least some more success in town where things are protected particularly from the direct wind by all the structures as compared to out on the farmstead...
Jesus Christ! You're arguing for arguments sake, with poor "evidence" or " knowledge". You should do your own field work and not rely on those "peop le", i.e., some root-collecting hillbilly(?), whom you believed to be intel legent enough to ID the specie of pine by virtue of decayed, weathered, mos s covered(?) root stock. Too bad we don't have one of them, here, to abso lutely ID the OPs boards.
I suppose those "people" are as knowledgeable of comparative "resin" conten t in the root stock of the different pines, as well, as they are knowledgea ble of IDing the specie of aged root stock.
There's a difference between resin and sap, both of which are different fro m pitch. The burning qualities of pine root stock comes from the pitch, n ot resin (or sap).
Sonny
On 07/07/2015 6:42 PM, Sonny wrote: ...
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US FPL also includes the others; the particular article notes they're there in lesser quantities despite a complete listing.
I'd wager in a random sample of commercial lumber from similar locations within the log eyeball identification of the various species in a blind test odds would be minimal at being above chance on isolating species; they're that similar and have enough variation between individuals of the same actual species as to be as the article says, virtually indistinguishable as lumber.
The picture of the link you give of a second species (forget which one I clicked second and didn't go back) chose a particularly stained piece as its prime picture, hardly a way to make a fair comparison.
I make no guess as to what particular species OPs sample board is but I'm essentially positive it is one of the SYP group. Given the age of the building from whence it came odds are better that it could be longleaf but again you've got to remember this was construction lumber (and a government building so in all likelihood it was low bidder). We're not talking furniture lumber here; even at the turn of the 20th century time frame.(+)
A side note here on an earlier point rather than posting twice -- you commented on the checking; recall that OP says these are 2x14; that's quite a wide piece and you see that this particular board is edge of log so there's sapwood both sides. That's a wide slab to start with to expect to dry w/o checking and when one considers the location in the log it'd be remarkable if there weren't any.
I mentioned the barn lumber here in comparison; it wasn't as long a span nor as heavy a load as an armory so the mow floor joists are nominal 2x8 (were finished 4S as a modern 2X except thickness/width are about -3/8" or 11/32" shy of nominal instead of the modern "less-half". Being smaller dimension, most don't have much checking but as noted there are some that look essentially identical to OP's. The columns were built on-site by using 3 to 5 2x6 instead of solids. The height to the gambrel break in the mow roof is 22-ft and they're all single spans. When we did the re-roof and tightened up some of the interior bracing I inspected some of those fairly carefully; there are some that are almost completely knotless the whole length...tough to find that now! :)
Speaking of pieces of lumber; in the late '50s/very early '60s Dad built a small feedlot and in conjunction added a feed mill and some grain bins in a corner of the mow. The additional framing for the support of those bins was Doug fir and there are some leftovers of it still up there. They're 20-footers 2x10 and 2x12; quite a few of them are also knot free (not quite as mean a feat with fir, granted, but still considering today's lumber that's pretty remarkable they just came in on the rail car that way w/o any special requirements...I can't bring myself to even touch one of 'em given what they'd cost! Haven't come up with the neat enough project yet to make cutting one up worth it over having them to marvel over...
The fences for the feedlot were all SYP roughsawn material of 10/4x8
16/18 ft. There's a pile of it left over as well; it has checked some because it wasn't dried that much intended as fence material when sawn. I have built a couple of bench tops with a few of them for the chopsaw to sit in along the barn driveway since came back but again it's too good to use... :)(+) Geezer story alert--Speaking of changing perspectives on wood and its usage, when we were still in Lynchburg Campbell County salvaged an old elementary school the earliest parts of the building which dated back to the late 18th century. Rather than an auction, they had dismantled everything first and had it available for purchase. I went down one Saturday morning thinking to get a slate board for the kids and just wandered around thru all the lumber piles. Some looked awfully dark but thought was just coal remnants after all those years of furnaces but decided to just see. A few whittles w/ the knife and surprise! most of the structural timbers were black walnut--as much as
3x12 12 and 14 footers.I had just met a local young kid who was turning out decoupage plaques by hand for the then craze as a way to earn spending money to get through school when he advertised a small shaper and planer in the Sunday paper. We had struck up a friendship and were trying to build some furniture together as a venture to both make a little extra money. Davis Paint, a local home-owned manufacturer and retailer had bankrolled Eddie and set him up a shop in the basement of their store downtown in order to ramp up the plaque production. Anyway, I called Eddie told him what I had found and we bought 10000 bd-ft of walnut for $1000 out of that stack of material. The point of the story is that way back then, walnut wasn't considered a furniture wood in that area yet, it was used as any other hardwood as a construction material or even fence posts I was told altho that I never actually saw.
The biggest regret (other than giving up UVA season basketball tickets the year Ralph Sampson was to matriculate) when we left VA to head to TN was having to let all that go as had no place to put any of it other than a board or two...Eddie ended up going on to quit school and start a fulltime wood shop. After the plaque craze died out, he got into the platform shoes for the local Craddock-Terry shoe manufacturer and turned some 40000 bd-ft of soft maple thru the shop one year doing them. Unfortunately, he ran into some serious health problems with rheumatoid arthritis at a very young age and ended up crippled before he was out of his 40's...
We have Chestnut on the property, not American variety but Chinese. It does not grow as large as an American would, but the deer and squirrels love the nuts.
Check American Chestnut Foundation
After a local arborist thought my trees were American Chestnut I checked with them to confirm. Upon inspection of sample materials from my trees they determined they were hybrid American/Japanese.
On 07/06/2015 8:59 PM, John Grossbohlin wrote: ...
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I don't think the end cut was terribly revealing of the grain structure... this as it is not very clean. There seemed to be hints of open cell structure in some areas and other areas seemed "smeared" by the blade. It either needed to be cut with say a WWII, planed with a hand plane, or shaved with a sharp chisel to give a better idea of the structure. As I mentioned previously, seeing and smelling the wood in person might change my impressions but it still strikes me as chestnut based on what I've seen of it.
While not pristine, looks clear enough to me there are no ring porous rings but simply the growth rings. Chestnut (like oak, doesn't have that color difference but the late wood rings are separated by the earlywood porous rings, even more pronounced generally than the oaks. The characteristic difference between it and the oaks is that the medullary rays aren't visible with naked eye as are in oak.
The end grain of OP's isn't going to look anything whatever like this irregardless of how much he polishes it up.
I also go back to the age and purpose and government building and think even by then chestnut wouldn't have been on the low bidder list.
When it comes to salvaging and using old lumber, I always get excited. Th ose "what if" moments, when those old lumbers are not able to be had, or re tained, are almost heart breaking. For some pieces, I, sometimes, never k now, exactly, what is there, so I try not to dismiss anything, until I can better evaluate it.
In the spirit of salvaging, I'd like to see OP make the best table he can, no matter what the wood is.
Another geezer story: Long ago, I salvaged an old house, thought the 2X4 roof rafters were "same ole" cypress, which I already had plenty of, so I was not so excited/impre ssed. Later, I needed new saw horses and grabbed some of those 2Xs. Tur ned out to be red maple (a secondary lumber?)..... not the greatest lumber, but I was pleasantly surprised. Their "roof rafter weathered" look was t he look of typical weathered roof rafters, whether cypress or any other woo d.
Despite red maple being labeled a "secondary" lumber, some of that maple ha d hints of birdseye. You never know what you've salvaged, until you give it a good inspection and/or work with it. Here are two projects, using tha t maple:
1) Child's loveseat rocker, chair on my right. Made to donate to a school fund raiser, but I discovered a construction defect (my screw-up), so it w as never donated. The chair on my left is made from salvaged cypress.Sonny
Lovely. The theme makes me remember the "swings" from 3rd grade. Happy Rocking/Swinging!
Bill
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