Thursday, March 5, 2015

Sawing whitebeam logs with the mulesaw.

As usual, I have been fairly busy during my time at home, and I haven't had the time in the workshop that I had hoped and expected.
Instead I have been busy sawing larch logs into planks to be used for our porch project some time in the future.

A friend of mine had downed some whitebeam trees on his property, and asked if I could saw them into planks on the mulesaw.

I have been sawing yesterday and today, and the wood looks really nice.

The interesting thing is that I can't find the species mentioned on the wooddatabase.

In Danish it is called: seljerøn, the Latin name is Sorbus Intermedia.

As far as I have been able to find out, it is mostly used for wood turning and carving, At a German Internet page I could see that it had been used for making pins for the German version of bowling (Kegeln).
 Previously it was used for cogs on gear wheels in wind mills. So it must be fairly hard.

If anyone knows of any other uses it would be interesting to hear about them.

I'll see if I can get Gustav to shoot a video of me sawing them tomorrow.

13 comments:

  1. Looks like trees in the sorbus family are referred to as "mountain-ash" or "rowan" and share a lot of properties with the unrelated fraxinus family (true ash trees). Never seen any in person but it makes sense it would be used for turning and structural work if it's like ash -- very rigid, hard and dense.

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    1. They are pretty common in Denmark as a tree in parks and on the sides of roads.
      But they are not used commercially. I'll check up on the mountain ash hint.
      A place noted that it was not very resistant to rot if it was kept outside, but kept dry it was fine.
      Thanks for commenting.
      Brgds
      Jonas

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  2. With a quick google search of the Latin name, I found several references to it, but mostly about the plant. Wikipedia and the Plant Database mention where it grows, but the only references I could find about use as lumber was a post from Lumberjocks.

    It sounds to me like some experiments for the sake of posterity are in order!

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    1. Most of the information I could find was about the plant too.

      Did you by any chance save the link for the Lumberjocks post?

      I'll askl if I can have a few planks to play around with, then after a couple of years of drying, I can make an experiment.
      Brgds
      Jonas

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  3. I was last weekend at the yearly auction in Arnhem looking at the Whitebeam.
    http://www.woodanatomy.ch/species.php?code=SOAR It's called here Meelbes.
    It is not the same as Rowan or Mt Ash, called in Holland Lijsterbes http://www.woodanatomy.ch/species.php?code=ULCA, but for all practical matters I don't think you could really tell it once it's cut up.
    Sawn into planks these woods are quite plain and uninteresting in appearance. They do have other characteristics that make them interesting and might be worth considering before you have it all sawed up. I went a-looking last week because I wanted it for axe handle material. I got word from the Norwegian carpenter that it's common there for this use and his favorite wood for handling his felling axe. It's also known, as you say, in traditional windmill construction and also makes an excellent wood for a mallet like the one I got from the turner at his shop in Krakow so long ago.

    Ernest Dubois

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    1. Hello Ernest.
      Thanks for the comment.

      I am a bit puzzled about the plain looking part though. These have some very nice looking darker heartwood and some yellow/pale sapwood. So I actually thought they would keep that look. I guess I'll have to see after it dries up.
      Making a turned mallet out of it makes perfectly sense, I'll just have to get a small branch for that. The logs are fairly large (+20" diameter).
      Brgds
      Jonas

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    2. Yes it can have a darker center which adds interest. I have planks of the second one, lijsterbes, drying now more than 10 years and these colors do fade. The Meelbes, same word as Mehlbeerbaum, the former Dutch the latter German, I left from the weekend were also big trees of the size you mention, though no longer than 1,7 meters.

      E.DB.

      Jonas, it is too much trouble making comments with the Blogspot. I won't do it again but will continue reading.

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    3. Hello Ernest.

      I am sorry to hear that it is troublesome to make comments on blogspot. But I am not nearly handy enough with computers to attempt to move the blog to somewhere else.
      Thank you for all your kind comments so far, and thanks for continuing to read the blog :-)
      A thing that I have noted is that it has a pinkish tint where the sap has dried.
      On one of the logs it looked like someone had sprinkled the outside with pink/purple. I have seen that before on some fruit trees, but it always seem to fade or disappear in the drying process.

      Here is one of the few Dustch phrases I know:
      Tot ziens.

      Please stop by if you ever go to Denmark.

      All the best
      Jonas

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  4. Hej med jer
    Olav looked "Mehlbeerbaum" up in Fritz Spannagel's book "Das Drechslerwerk" (reprint from 1948) and the author compares it to pear wood. Quote: "Das Holz [...] ist sehr verwandt mit dem Birnbaum und im verarbeiteten Zustand leicht zu verwechseln. Gleich ihm steht es ausgezeichnet und ist noch etwas zäher als dieses." Endquote.
    Venlig hilsen Beate

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    1. Beate, I think you get the prize for the most languages used in a single comment!

      Cheers, and Schoene Gruesse to Olav!

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    2. Hello Beate.

      Thanks for the comment.
      Now I have learned yet another word today :-)
      The first one was the term for the lower part of the roof (skalk).
      and now also Mehlbeerbaum.

      Mit freundlichen Grüssen
      Jonas

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  5. There is a nice example of a whitebeam carving here:
    http://www.livius.eu/spoons-fall-2014/

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