Magnolia lumber

[Larry]

A guy brought in three big magnolia logs for me to live edge slab today.  The butt log looked about like a dowel, 30" in diameter and 10' long.  Second log was still straight but smaller, and the third has a big curve with crotches.  The tree was just dropped a few days ago.

Don't think I've ever sawed magnolia.  Is the lumber interesting?  Since I never saw it, thought I might try to barter to get one of the slabs.  It sorta looks like it might have some ambrosia in it.  Anything to watch out for when sawing?

[Magicman]

It's cold so at least you should not have any mildew problems so maybe it will stay white.  It could have some black streaks around the knots and in the center. 

I have a sorta monster in my future, 40"+ .  :  :-\  I saw it as the customer wishes with no recommendations regarding the sawing pattern and have never had any followup regarding how any projects turned out.

[metalspinner]

I seem to remember the grain figure looked like a peanut and the smell after it was dry and while planing was like popcorn.

[Nomad]

     I cut a fair amount of it.  Saws easy.  Sometimes it's got chocolate streaks in the heartwood.  The customer I usually cut it for says she can't keep it in stock it sells so fast.  Most of the time I'm just cutting live edge slabs for her.  The slabs are air dried at a minimum before sale, unless the customer wants it "right now" and understands the issues with that.

[WDH]

 

 



 



 

Has a grain very similar to yellow poplar because yellow poplar is in the magnolia family.  The grain is a bit more pronounced in magnolia, though.  

[Larry]

That's a beautiful table and interesting.  I assume you made it. 8)

I can see that I should take care to have the pith level when I slab it.

[WDH]

Actually a customer made it.  

[Sixacresand]

Getting to mill a magnolia log this week.  Owner was please with 24" live edged 5/4, 8/4 and 6/4 slabs.  Pretty wood.  



 


 

 

[Larry]

It was a gorgeous day with the temperature up in the 70's so I decided to knock out the magnolia.







This was probably the best log as far as figure.  Notice the rings, the tree grew like crazy for the first 20 years and than really slowed down for some reason.  Not as good figure as the one WDH showed, but I think interesting. 

I love sawing the stuff.  Easy sawing and the cut surface was almost as smooth as what I get out of a planer.

This is an example of what I call "rescue logs".  They came from a neighborhood of very old and large houses.  It has many big trees and as they die the folks know to get them to me the day the tree service cuts them down. 

[WDH]

Beautiful Larry.  I told you that the "grain" was stronger than yellow poplar, otherwise, very similar to yellow poplar in all respects as to sawing but the heartwood is more of a chocolate brown instead of green.  I really like it.  I have some very beautiful air dried slabs that need to go into the kiln. 

BTW, one of our hardwood climax species is magnolia. 

[Clark]

I rather like the look of the magnolia lumber.

I know very little about the tree but we have planted some in town and my brief experience with them is that they put on diameter like crazy when they are young. Which mirrors what you have in that picture. 

Clark