(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21935/DSCN0603.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21935/DSCN0574.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21935/DSCN0575.JPG) I have seen some comments about how bad sweetgum is. Wish I had more of that bad bad stuff.
nice texbob,almost looks like popular in the second picture
Glad I don't know what I am doing. The stuff dryed nice and flat and stright.
The red gum and black gum we have in southern MD rarely looks as good as your sweetgum and rarely dries without twist and warp. We mostly cut the gum into lagging for earth support systems. ( 3" and 4" thick at random width and 8' length)
Yours looks great, wish I had some!
I like sweetgum. Its cuts good, makes nice boards and easy to nail.
You did good!
What your pictures show, we call red gum (heart) a premium priced board. Of all the boards I have on display in my office I always know what board customers are asking about without even looking. It's always the red gum.
Mark
That is indeed some nice looking sweetgumery, Texbob. I would be happy to supply you with many truckloads of nice straight logs! It is just about our most common tree here, certainly in the top 5. Most of the sawlogs go for pallet, railroad ties, and so on. I think they buy the logs from us for about $175 / bf, except one place gives $225 for the nice ones. ;)
That is pretty lumber I have never tried sawing any just always took it to the pallet mill and sold it ,guess will have to try a few logs it doesnt weigh out that good anyway.
Did I mention they grow quite big here? 2-3 ft diameter is real common if they're not harvested sooner. They probably get bigger than that sometimes, too. I mostly try to ignore them because there is so little demand for the logs or lumber around here. In times past, a lot of poor folk have built their outbuildings of sg wood, especially the siding and roof boards.
Sweet gum definitely has many potential uses. Most people I know seem to feel it's more trouble than its worth, and three new ones grow up to replace every tree you cut down. Also, many of the big trees in our area have very little heartwood, which I guess is the beautiful part of the wood... We recently hauled three nice straight sg logs to the mill, that were 18-24" diameter, and the heartwood was less than 6".
Most people round here call em junk wood they will take over a field pretty quick. I always enjoyed logging them they cut and trim easy the biggest one I have fell was 45 so inches acrost the stump like you say verry little heart for the size of the log
Sometimes we call them weeds. But as we can see, they do have their uses.
Here is a link to a sweet gum flooring job that turned out very nice imho.
I guess the old saying is still alive. One man's trash is another's treasure.
http://treehuggerwoodfloors.com/sweetgum_sustainable-tongue_groove_floor.htm
Welcome to the forum, Silver! Who is your friend in your profile picture?
Thank you Okrafarmer;
That is one of my best friend's. His name is Gus, he is a 7 yr old gelding, we got lucky and found him at the Ken Mcnabb ranch horse sale a couple year's ago. That pic was in August this last summer after a long morning work out, he was cooling down on the ridge where we get good breeze about 1 in the afternoon. Good ol bank robber knott tied to a slip hook.
He is a good one. Not that I'm partial to him or anything lol.
And you are right, that is a very nice sweetgum floor. ;)
I found that link to the sweet gum flooring about a year ago, I kinda liked the coloring of the floor also. The contrast coloring might make a good layout in some area's of a home that need a touch of shade off-set. I guess it gives us a different look anyway to give some thought to when it comes to color's for flooring.
That group did a great job on the lay-out for the web link imo.
Silver, how does that sweetgum floor wear? Gum is fairly soft. Your floor and workmanship are beautiful.
Bob
It is a very conterversil wood thay is for sure. Read several places that it is the most used wood for furniture next to oak. Even the sg without the red heart staines up nice. Have some more pictures some place, when I find them I will post them.
No doubt that it is beautiful. The problem is that there is no consistency. One log or one part of a single log will do good, then all the rest is warped and twisted. You cannot control the warp and twist without managing the sawing pattern and focusing on quarter sawing. Even then there is no guarantee. It is the unpredictability of how it will behave that makes it such a difficult wood to work with.
Welcome to the Forestry Forum Silver_Eagle. Yes, that flooring is very nice. :)
Sweetgum will spalt nicely. I sawed one big ole log that had lain in the pasture for a year. It had a bunch of nice spalt. My ceiling tile on Jeff's cabin is made from it.
kelLOGg;
I don't have a sweet gum floor, was just sharing the link to the flooring job I found a year or so ago.
According to the article, they used Bonakemi Traffic clear finish.
Seems like dried sweetgum would be hard enough for a durable floor.
SG has a janka hardness of 850, which is a little less than red cedar, but much higher than poplar, which those same people were also using in their mixed-species floor. Black ash is also 850.
Thank you Magicman.
pineywoods,
I took down a couple SG doing a fence repair a couple year's ago. I let them set for 6 month's or so them sawed them up into 1 by 12. Very pretty board's but the SG reminded me of the nasty smell of the white fir we used to cut logging in Oregon. The white fir would get conk's on it that the rain would seep into the tree, rot a chamber into the tree and fill with nasty, stinky water. Then when you would go up to cut the tree, if you didn't catch it, when getting close to getting your first under cut put in, would just shower your legs with water lol. Not good :o ::). We called them P^ss fir lol. Not all of them would do it just some older tree's usually.
Have had that happen with some oaks and other trees.
Years ago when I was a house builder, a cabinet shop here was selling Tupelo Gum trim. It finished up really nice, but had a few kinks, and they switched to poplar. Before that everybody was using white pine trim, and I thought it was nice to use a hardwood. Then oak came along, and after while the customers were all tired of oak and wanted something else. Now they seem to like flaws in their cabinet doors.
Sweetgum's sheer availability means we should always try to learn more things to do with it. And it is some nice looking stuff.