I have heard people talk about Ironwood but don't know if it is a species or if it even exists. Seems to me that there is a Forum member by that handle, but I'm sure that he isn't what(who) these folks were talking about. Can anyone shed a little light on Ironwood?
In North America there are numerous trees called "Ironwood", here in the East it is usually the American Hornbeam, which is in the beech family (also goes by musclewood, and several other slang) heavy dense, understory tree (not nearly as dense and substantial as western Desert Ironwood).
Ironwood
Round here Ironwood is usually Hop-Hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), but sometimes American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) more commonly called Blue Beech around here.
I have never heard of Eastern Hop Hornbeam called Ironwood, at least not in these parts. It is SOOO different of a tree from the American Hornbeam. Could never be confused. Second pic, the bark is peeled.
Ironwood (Musclewood, Blue Beech, American Hornbeam)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11262/OIMG_0178.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11262/Owalnutchair2.jpg)
In this area there is a tree that generally doesn't get very big in diameter.
The bark resembles ash and some refer to it as "iron wood" and some call it "hard hack"!
It has a leaf that resembles elm!
There is also the tree referred to earlier as "blue beach", which is also called "muscle wood"!
I'm thinking that the "iron wood" might be in the Ash family!
I believe American Hornbeam peters out (northern boundry) in mid state NY, here in Western PA, it gets 12" and not much bigger. I suppose there are pockets of American Hornbean further north, but never seen it in the Daks, so I am sure it must terminate as around the Lake Onterio area.
Ironwood
Yes ironwood is a recognized tree species as stated above.
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/carpinus/caroliniana.htm
Ditto, Ironwood
Quote from: nas on May 10, 2009, 03:53:55 PM
Round here Ironwood is usually Hop-Hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), but sometimes American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) more commonly called Blue Beech around here.
Quote from: Ironwood on May 10, 2009, 04:04:32 PM
I have never heard of Eastern Hop Hornbeam called Ironwood, at least not in these parts.
Yeah, I know the confusion. But in eastern Canadian forestry schools we call
Ostrya virginiana ironwood or eastern hophornbeam. Local old timers and farmers call it hornbeam. Just to be different I suppose, as we also call box elder a Manitoba maple and striped maple is called moosewood. ;D
http://www.unb.ca/courses/for1000/Labs/FLab02.pdf
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/mx-212/ironwood
What we call ironwood here is in the birch family and very young trees can be confused with yellow birch by their bark.
I don't know what tree species it is, but I believe there is also an African tree called ironwood.
Thanks for the replies. Now as to the name, is it hard to work with or is there some other reason for the name? The chair is a nice looking piece.
I think the name is related to the fact that either is a very dense hardwood for the region they are found. Like up here in Maritimes, O. virginiana is our densest hardwood. It makes great axe handles and sled runners. Mom's uncle make all his tool handles by hand from local ironwood/eastern hop-hornbeam.
It is very shade tolerant and can take over the understory of a hardwood stand used for firewood or sugar bush if beech is not as prominent. American Beech (not blue beech referred to as another ironwood) will also regenerate thick on the same site and kill out maple and yellow birch regen. But, it has to be a prominent component that usually gets cut for firewood. The remaining maple can't regenerate as well in shade as beech, it usually gets a couple feet tall and stagnates if not released. A sugar maple stand is usually like a park underneath until you start doing some harvesting.
I use Eastern Hop Hornbeam to make handle for my tools. Only have to do it once after the store bought one breaks. My Uncle makes chess boards and uses it for the white squares.
Southern Illinois is the same as Swamp Donkey's definition. Hop hornbeam - ironwood, blue beech - muscle wood. Same problem with the hornbeam dominating an understory, just change the maple to oak. Prescribe fire can help some if they are young enough.
Eastern Hophornbeam=ironwood in N. Michigan. Ruffed Grouse bud on them in the winter so they have some value for wildlife. Hophornbeam firewood is near the top of the charts for BTU content. Trees up to 16"DBH are around but usually any much over 8" are hollow. We don't have blue beech/muscle wood up here.
In the southern tier of NY both the American hornbeam (C. caroliniana) and the Eastern hop hornbeam (O. virginiana) are known as ironwood. The eastern hop hornbeam was sometimes referred to as the "wagon axle tree" since some of the stems were straight enough and hard enough to serve as a wagon axle. I know of one guy that was making wooden mauls for timber framing and such out of the eastern hop hornbeam. He would cut a suitable size tree into sections and then bore out an "eye" and put in an axe handle. As the hop hornbeam dried it would tighten up around the handle and make a good mallet. He was doing that to show that trees we consider a "weed" could be put to good use. He also mentioned one time that he sometimes would put a section on a lath and turn it to make a better mallet head. He did say that it had to be turned green though since it was too difficult to turn after it had cured. Why that is so I don't know.
Here in the Champlain Valley foothills of the Green Mountains in Vermont, "Hardhack" seems to be the common term for "Eastern Hophornbeam". It's also referred to as "Ironwood" or "American Hophornbeam. Bark is light brown and in long thin scaly strips or ridges. The bark looks a little "shaggy" (one friend thought it was a small shagbark hickory, until I showed him a real shagbark). Leaves are yellow-green when viewed from above, turn yellow in the fall. It makes excellent firewood. It's unusual to find them more than 6 or 7" DBH around here, though I've seen some up to 10". The "hop" part of it's name refers to the fact that it's fruit clusters resemble the hops used in making beer.
"American Hornbeam" (NOT "hophornbeam") is also referred to as "Blue Beech" or "Water Beech". The bark on this is blue-gray and smooth. Leaves are dull dark blue-green viewed from above. Turns orange/red in fall. It's really a member of the birch family. the name "Blue Beech" probably came about because it's bark resembles beech.
Both are hard, tough wood. Both tend to be smaller, understory trees in hardwood forests. Both are good wildlife food sources (deer, grouse, pheasants, etc.)
"Rekindling" this older thread, to generate ideas for using Eastern Hophornbeam (Ironwood). I have loved it every time I harvest one for firewood, but I recently felled one that is a little bigger (~10" DBH), and there is a 14" one next to trail I'm widening. I saved the butt log of the smaller one for the Sawmill, and looking for your experience with it. How does it saw, air dry and behave when drying? What are some uses for the wood? It's Janka weight is very high, and it rarely rots when left on the forest floor. Tool handles and mallet heads are mentioned above, but any other uses?
Because I rarely split it, I haven't seen the grain until recently, and it has a rich brown tone that may be suitable for turning and other smaller applications. Thoughts?
I'd make a small table, but all the rest of the things are just as legit. People also used it for whippletrees on sleds, wagons and such and wood yarding horses. My uncle only used horses as hobby, never had to make a living at it, but he always used ironwood on sleds and yarding chains. I don't have any on my ground except the back corner acre that was maple woods and it came there when there was cutting in it. I thinned some out with the brush saw a few years ago, but I favoured maple. I have 4 yard trees that are ironwood though, I like the seed sacks. They seem to expend a lot of energy to make those sacks for a tiny nut inside.
The ironwood that resembles beech is sometime called "musclewood" as the stem looks like a body-builders' rippling muscles. Grows out back of my house in wet areas.
In our area we generally cut iron wood (Ostry virginiana). One job we sold it to a guy who used horse drawn implements. He milled them down to make the tongue (?) The thing that connects the implement to the horses?
I think we cut him 10ft logs. They were 10 inches @ the small end.
whippletree. Ironwood was all they used around here for them. Also the old timers here preferred ironwood over ash for axe handles and tool wood. My uncle was hard on axe handles and ash never lasted long, ironwood lasted a lot longer but nothing lasts forever. :D
Ironwood is a VERY general term. There are over 100 species that are called ironwood by some. You can find a list HERE. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironwood)
DANG! I don't see anyone mentioning that hophornbeam was popular to make ox yokes. Isn't that where "hornbeam" came from? I've seen some that were 24" dbh. Super firewood; not too hard to split if straight-grained.
hop-hornbeam is ironwood up here. The old timers here never used the term ironwood, that is a forest industry term. Unless you are a forester or forest technician or professor type up this way, you'll get a look of wonder over the use of ironwood as a label. :wink_2:
Quote from: KEC on January 19, 2025, 07:39:32 PMThe ironwood that resembles beech is sometime called "musclewood" as the stem looks like a body-builders' rippling muscles. Grows out back of my house in wet areas.
This is the Ironwood that I have. I made a cant hook handle out of one and it is tough as nails. I also had a guy take one to make a longbow. Never heard how it turned out. I honestly think Hickory is harder wood though.
Dried to 12%, Hophornbeam has a specific gravity of 0.70, shagbark is 0.72, black locust is 0.69, live oak is 0.88, osage-orange is 0.8. I don't see anything for blue beech (musclewood), is it more of a shrub than a tree? I saw a huge service berry (well 12" stump with suckers off it) this summer. I know that is hard wood to, but I don't have any figures. I mostly see it no bigger than 3" diameter. Who knows what species, there's many.
(https://i.postimg.cc/DZh7k16d/PB030057.jpg)
here is a box I made from Ironwood. The ends are cherry, but there rest is Ironwood. Ostrya virginiana.
You have to find a rare larger tree to get some of the more tan colored heartwood. The sapwood is very light colored (think Sugar Maple).
not any harder to saw, plane etc than any other hardwood if your using good quality tools.
I have a bunch of boards that I sawed up for lumber of the stuff. 12" dbh is a rare large Ironwood, its a understory tree that doesn't get very big.
Very slow growing.
Biggest hop-hornbeam I saw was 3 feet through. Very old, growing along an old cedar rail fence where they also dumped field stone clearing land. The old field was woods again. They don't get very tall here, maybe 60 feet. Most of the time we always used it for firewood, most was never big enough to make a board. But mom's uncle made tool handles (axe handles) and whippletrees for mom's brother.
When you find it ironwood is usually less than 6 inchs .Oh yes indeed dry is hard as a rock .Real dry about like cutting concrete .Most I've found are windblown on the ground .I've never done but it might work well for a peavey handle in place of hickory .I've never seen any large enough to make lumber from .
Quote from: Al_Smith on January 29, 2025, 08:54:15 AMWhen you find it ironwood is usually less than 6 inchs .Oh yes indeed dry is hard as a rock .Real dry about like cutting concrete .Most I've found are windblown on the ground .I've never done but it might work well for a peavey handle in place of hickory .I've never seen any large enough to make lumber from .
I have made a bunch of lumber from Ironwood that I've cut from my small woodlot.
I guess it all depends upon how big you have to have your lumber.
I have lots of Ironwood lumber that's up to 10" wide x 3-4ft long. Plenty big enough to make boxes and smaller woodworking projects.
If all one is going to saw up has to be at least 12" wide x 8ft long there is alot of stuff that gets passed by that is useful to alot of woodworkers.
I don't think I've ever seen an Ironwood (hop hornbeam) bigger than 8 or 10" dbh in northern MN.
The same here in northern lower Michigan and they have been few at 8-10 inches.
They grow very slow even in the open in full sun. 4 here on the lawn have been here over 30 years, not very tall and not very fat. Great ornamental tree with those showy green hop sack in summer though. ffsmiley
It's worth checking out this link. It's the various trees that are called "Ironwood".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironwood
It seems every location around the World has at least one tree that's called Ironwood, Australia probably takes the record for the most. ffcheesy
Yes, there's probably 3 species of 'ironwood' in North America. That's why I call it a 'forestry term'. No one else uses hop-hornbeam, for what we call ironwood in the industry. But that old hard nosed English dendrologist in university insisted on 'ironwood' for O. virginiana, despite the contrary use of hop-hornbeam of local craftsmen and farmers and woodsmen. You didn't do well if you didn't follow his 'doctrine'. Ironwood was a foreign term to me, never heard it before. What's that? ffcheesy ffcheesy But then, look at 'poplar', that's a local term although all our mills here call it poplar or popple instead, aspen being the industry term. Locally, poplar refers to balsam poplar (balm of Gilead) up here and popple is trembling or large toothed aspen. South of here in Carolinian forest 'poplar' refers to tulip tree, some call it tulip poplar, a more hybrid term.
When we first came here it was a pretty much liquidated wood lot. In some areas hophornbeam ironwood acted as a pioneer species coming in first after the blackberries. Then persisted as an under story tree as they got over taken. I have only used it as firewood. A few got pretty good sized - over a foot. The gnarly log on the left is one I cut after it died - I still remember loading it several years ago.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21065/Fwdr4.JPG) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=251973)
gg
For my forest management plan the state forester recommended removing most of the ironwood on my 8 acres. She said it was blocking the understory. They were all pretty small less than 4".
A friend who was a civil war re-enactor took quite a few as they would make his role playing more authentic. Don't remember exactly how he was going to use them, but he was quite happy to take them.
Doug in SW IA
Ironwood (hop-hornbeam) can be a thicket in a thinned out sugar bush. Sometimes it's beech thicket instead. On our land it tended to ironwood, but at my uncle's further north it was the beech. Neighbor's have lots of beech on some hardwood lots, other lots none, like our was. I've been on a lot that was 95% beech, it was mostly dead rotten or dying to. All the hard maple was cut off, just beech left. Nothing bigger than 12". Some maple stumps where 30" across. Most of our beech is junk, hard to make firewood from it.
I have pockets of ho Hornbeam in my forest. They are no bigger than 10". Forty years ago I did not not know what they were but looked like real nice straight fence posts to me. They all rotted out in a year or two. So since then they are fire wood other than some that I cut for my Farrier who uses it to make whippletrees and handles for axes, hammers, and other things.
I know one mill we cut for on their lands, wete reconsidering their approach on thinning oak stands because all that was regenerating underneath were ironwood and a few maples. I think they were leaning more towards small clearcut in oak. One method is called a "string of pearls", they are small clearcuts of 2 acres or so, connected by a skid trail. I think k that might be called a shelter wood cut elsewhere?
Question: Is "whippletree" another name for "single tree" for hitching horses ?
The whippletree is the spreader bar that the horse work harness traces hook onto the ends. In the center a hook for the logging chain to attach.
Yes but a bit more: Whippletree LINK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whippletree_(mechanism))
While I don't want to generate a lot of confusion here, or be contrary- I'll give my personal history of the term "Whippletree". I've spent every bit of 55 years around horses, including Saddle horses, Driving horses and Drafts. I've owned and driven Teams of Drafts (Belgians, Percheron, Clydes & "Grade"), including one three- horse hitch. I've owned and driven Driving horses in a single hitch, in weddings and parades.
My opinion of the definitions given online is a bit too broad. I think the proper comparison that is shown would be to the term "Singletree", which are used to transfer the force of a single horse to the "pull". In cases where there are multiple horses in the hitch, there would be a single one in use for each animal. They would transfer the force to "Eveners", "Double trees", etc. My point is there are terms for each of these components, and them being connected doesn't make them all a "Whippletree".
I will also say that my experience has been that the term "Whippletree" is more narrowly applied to rigs that are set up for a single horse hitch in a buggy, sulky or sleigh, with staves and a Whiffletree bolted to the Stave frame. These typically don't have hooks to connect a Trace chain, but some apparatus to connect the Leather Tugs usually found on light Harnesses.
I'll go out to the barn and get pics of some of these things, but after seeing how the online definitions show everything from neck yokes to sets of eveners, I wanted to add my $0.02- even if it doesn't mean that much.
I will also add that the intended use of Hop Hornbeam for any of the aforementioned uses is still viable, and I intend to use mine to these ends.
I invite more discussion from folks like Swamp Donkey or
@DbltreeBelgians about these definitions. My upbringing was in a very small part of the Horse world, and I'm always eager to learn more.
In my experience a whippletree (we called it whiffletree up here, one in the same) was a term used with a pair of horses. A 2 horse team pulling a plow, hay wagon, log sled, manure spreader and so on. My uncle and mom's father never owned a tractor or a skidder. Dad used a horse to yard in the 70's but soon got a used skidder. You didn't have to feed it. Hop off up at the woods yard and head home. He was home free. Got rid of them cows about the same time. Said he can't continue working around the clock. ffcheesy ffcool
Dad and a neighbor were going to cut wood one day with the horse. They had the one horse sled, put a bale of hay on it for the horse. Neighbor's wife looks out the window. She never seen nothing like it before, the men pulling the sled across the field and the horse eating the hay off the back of the sled. ffcheesy ffcheesy ffcheesy
Thanks, my Horizons just expanded. You're saying this is a "Whippletree", and folks I learned from would call it "Eveners" or "Double Tree" (on my Barn Wall...):
IMG_5485.jpg
My (too narrow, it would appear...) interpretation of Whippletree was always:
IMG_5486.jpg
or:
IMG_5492.jpg
I still think Hop Hornbeam would be well applied to any of these, including neck yokes. I appreciate your insights.
@hardtailjohn 's pair of Clydesdales :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl04wUmygA8
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gpzngjmTC8
Yes that on the wall. Of course, if you broke one of the parts, you'd say I need to fix the whiffletree. So any one of them bars would need fix'n as a part of the whiffletree. That's my understanding.
A singletree is used on a single horse for yarding wood. A wooden bar with iron fittings. The middle fitting attaches the yarding chain to the log. The ones on the ends go to the harness.
On my Meadowbrook cart we refer to it as the singletree as the swivel bar that the driving harness traces hook to. It pivots on the cart and takes the entire load. I broke mine once and had to order a singletree. I am pretty sure it is ash. As for logging a bit with my horses we always call the bar directly behind the horse the whippletree. When pulling with two or three horses the next spreader out are cross bars. Using these names prevents miscommunication on hitching to a log which can be a disaster if done wrong. I am sure this is all regional and depends on who taught you.
Old Scottish blood here called single yarding horse attachments swingle trees (single trees). I've not seen any horse logging book call it a whiffletree, although a single tree is considered a type of whiffletree. So 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. :D
My experiance with horses is just Shetland ponies .Little knot heads .It's just a good thing they are small because they would be a chore to handle if they were as large as a draft horse .
Quote from: Rhodemont on February 01, 2025, 12:56:02 PMThe whippletree is the spreader bar that the horse work harness traces hook onto the ends. In the center a hook for the logging chain to attach.
Thanks All!