Red mulberry

[limbrat]

 I think it is gorgous wood and would like to use it in some exterior doors. Does anyone know its shrinkage, it seems pretty soft will drying harden it?
Thank you

[WDH]

Limbrat,

I have been looking for shrinkage values and cannot find any for red mulberry in my references.  I think the wood is at a least medium to medium hard after it dries.  Not sure about the shrinkage though.  Probably not as bad a oak, hopefully.  I bet it will make some fine doors.

[limbrat]

Yea myself couldnt find anything in grin are any where else. I did find referance to it having a low shrinkage but no numbers maybe because saw logs are rare.  Thanks for looking

[WDH]

From my observations, it is not a long lived tree, and the older trees are prone to going hollow.  That is probably why there is not much mulberry lumber.  I love the grain of the wood.  I have one tree about 14" in diameter that will make a nice sawlog one day when I decide to re-incarnate it into some furniture.  See my post Mulberry in Tree ID Forum.  The tree in that post is not that 14" sawlog, it is too valuable for those exquisite fruits to ever cut down .

[Buzz-sawyer]

If it is like my Illinois mulberry it is pretty darn hard and stable....seems to be kin to hedge. ;)

[Dodgy Loner]

Yep, it's a pretty hard wood.  According to "Identifying Wood" by Bruce Hoadly, the average specific gravity is 0.66, which is between red oak (0.63) and white oak (0.68).  It should make some fine doors.

[WDH]

If I remember right, it has few to moderate tyloses while black locust and osage orange are fully occluded?

[limbrat]

Great i couldnt find much on it and knew that a seed planted here would produce. Im going to wait and get them sawed on a bandmill with some other stuff. I was questioning the hardness cause the end grain is fuzzy like you get on real soft stuff like black willow, may have just been a dull spot in my chain. Thank you