Pine vs Spruce....Discuss.....

[FarmingSawyer]

I've been milling quite a bit of spruce lately. Some is pasture or yard spruce which is limby and full of knots.....other stuff is from a dense forest stand and is amazing. Tight, small knots or clearish.....

Around here, NWP is king. But we also have a lot of Spruce. Somehow, I can't convince people that spruce is acceptable framing lumber or for use instead of pine.......  Both NWP & Spruce are unfortunately pulp woods and many a good sawlog is going to the chipper or pulp mill.

What is everyone else's experience with this?

[BCsaw]

Up here, in my experience anyway, spruce has been used for framing for years and years. I actually prefer it. I saw quite a bit of it. I use it for siding, framing, timbers, etc. My grandfather used to saw it for flooring as well. The black spruce that I used to see back east when I was a kid was a little more challenging to saw. It would move like crazy. Twisting and bending especially. Nothing wrong with pine, just grew up around a lot of spruce and like its qualities. ;D

:new_year:

[Dave Shepard]

What is NWP? I only have EWP here. Spruce is probably a better framing material than white pine, although it can be a pain to saw with all the hard knots.

[Ludo]

I just finished (75) 2x8x18' spruce for a customer, they requested spruce and no pine due to "strength".  Around here most of my customers request spruce over pine for framing lumber. When you off load a 18' spruce it weights a ton compared to pine. Perhaps the weight is an indication of strength?

[4x4American]

In a book I was reading about the Adirondacks, they logged the heck out of the spruce.  I went and found it, here's an excerpt:

"Once the pines were gone, to the logger spruce was the only tree in the forest.  For the rest of the century, the term 'merchantable timber' meant spruce alone.  Land was valued and sold according to how much spruce it had on it.  When the spruce was gone, a tract was considered worthless.  Worse than worthless, even.  Seventy-five percent of the trees were still on the ground-the giant maples and birches-but without spruce the forest was a liability that was best allowed to revert to the state for nonpayment of taxes."   -The Adirondacks    A History of America's First Wilderness    by Paul Schneider  (page 203)

(The book also says that besides spruce the only other tree they took in any significant amount was hemlock because it provided tannin for the trappers.)

I've not sawed a whole heck of a lot of spruce, I've mainly sawed pine, but of the spruce I have sawed, it went really well, and came out real nice.  It was also clean, fresh cut, and brand new, old mesharp blades.

[4x4American]

I just finished (75) 2x8x18' spruce for a customer, they requested spruce and no pine due to "strength".  Around here most of my customers request spruce over pine for framing lumber. When you off load a 18' spruce it weights a ton compared to pine. Perhaps the weight is an indication of strength?

That was some heavy lumber!  Yea you're not kidding spruce sho ams heavy.

[FarmingSawyer]

I used NWP--northern white pine....but was really thinking EWP.....  I love spruce....light weight and strong. Much like the White Fir equivalent to Doug Fir...... Hemlock is a good wood, but heavy and wet and needs to be used green or you might as well weld it......

I just sawed out a couple of yard spruces. The knots were a pain and a challenge to go get non-wavy lumber..... for the most part I got good material but some of it I would personally reject as non-saleable because of a bit of wobble....... The rest is true, and strong.

I used Spruce for a ramp into the barn. It held my Suburban just fine. Pine would have shattered. Clear Spruce is/was used for piano sound boards and used to be used for airplane frames due to its strength to weight ratio.

I just wish the majority of the public around here would get their head out of the white pine and see Spruce as worth while....... Not sure how spruce ages. It might not have that warm piney glow. I set some nice wide 1x aside so I can build some furniture out of it, so we'll see how it works.

Not quite sure about the Maine prejudice against it. A Canuk friend of mine from NS said she'd rather use spruce because that's what they had growing up.....
I had the opportunity to get some HUGE blow down spruces--clear for 20ft off the butt with a 20-28" DBH. But it was a dangerous hill side logging venture and I don't have the right equipment, so I priced myself out of the job on purpose..... I'm sure the logger in there now is grabbing it quick and dirty for pulp wood.

[4x4American]

The spruce I milled were yard trees too, cut em right outta my yard.

Here's a picture.  I cut two spruce and one fir outta here.



 

[4x4American]

Hey FarmingSawyer, how thick did you saw the spruce for your ramps?

[BCsaw]

Just a side note here.........I know a guy who worked quality control at a commercial sawmill up here. He claimed that they could NOT get Doug Fir to pass testing for 2x12's, spruce no problems. Up to 2x12 was fine, 2x10, 2x8, etc. They would break the 2x12's and measure the weight/force at which they broke. Kind of surprised me with the fir. Spruce, no surprise.

[coastlogger]

I have a shed I built 30 years ago sided with 5/8 x 14 inch Sitka spruce,put on as horizontal lapped siding.Lapped 1 inch. It had air dried a few months before I put it on. This was knotty fast growing wood,in other words nothing special. It looks as good today as the day I nailed it up. No warp,even on the sunny side,and no rot.Recently sold an order(not cut yet) to a summertime resident/neighbour based on what he saw on the shed.
Im hoping I can actually cut this on my bandmill,previous stuff I did with my M14 Belsaw.Havent cut much Spruce on bandmill,my associates all avoid it. We'll see I guess

[repmma]

Im nothing more then a novice sawyer but I did purposely root out some black spruce for my garage door headers.  Why?  Definitely not because I've figured out how to saw it as well as i can saw pine...

EWP: MOR (bending strength) - 8600psi, Hardness 380lbs and MOE (stiffness) - 1.2 million psi.

SPRUCE : MOR - 10,600 psi (black and red) (23% more then pine), Hardness avg 500lbs (31% more then pine) and MOE - avg 1.6 million (33% more then pine) for red and black.  White is lower then the others but still more then pine.

That's From the Independent Sawmill & Woodlot Management magazine, tree species collection.

Numbers don't lie.  When sawn to equal standards  it's simply stronger then EWP.  Remind people that SPF lumber stands for SPRUCE PINE AND FIR and give them the numbers.  Of course if your talking southern yellow pine it looses out but in the NE it's the king for soft wood strength.

You can lead a horse to water...

[FarmingSawyer]

Hey FarmingSawyer, how thick did you saw the spruce for your ramps?

I made 4 stringers underneath at 4 x 8 and put them flat--it's a short ramp 5ft long, and only raises 14". The decking I made 3x8's......

Just a side note here.........I know a guy who worked quality control at a commercial sawmill up here. He claimed that they could NOT get Doug Fir to pass testing for 2x12's, spruce no problems. Up to 2x12 was fine, 2x10, 2x8, etc. They would break the 2x12's and measure the weight/force at which they broke. Kind of surprised me with the fir. Spruce, no surprise.

I'm surprised by the fir too. I've sawn out and used 1000's of doug fir 2x12's. I lived in a cabin in WA which has a finished spruce floor made of 2x12's. It was soft but beautiful. Probably harder than the wide plank pine flooring here in Maine. But the spruce floor didn't hold up as well as the fir 2x6 car decking subfloor I put down in an addition.

I think Spruce might have a higher modulus of elasticity, which is why it didn't shatter before the fir.....

[Southside]

Might be more of a central Maine thing. Spruce is the framing king back in Aroostook. The only use we ever knew for pine was interior siding.

[thecfarm]

I made a bunch of money selling EWP for sawlogs. But they was not being sawed for framing lumber. At the time I think finish boards. But I am no more than 45 minutes from the sawmill too. But saying that even 2 hours is not that far when you can make $1000-1500 per load instead of $600-700.
My Father did not and would not use EWP for lumber. He was a hemlock man. But would buy fir or spruce at a lumber yard too.

[Chuck White]

I saw mostly Eastern White Pine and Hemlock through my sawing season.

I like sawing the Hemlock a little more than the EWP because of the pitch and clean-up with the EWP.

IMO, Hemlock makes better framing lumber than the EWP does, it's stronger.

IMO, EWP makes better boarding lumber than the Hemlock does because it doesn't split near as bad when nailing after drying!

[Remle]

Some of you may know this tip.. when hand nailing, turn the nail over and tap the pointed end with your hammer. This reduces the splitting action when driving the nail. Honestly, it's not an old wives tail, it really works. Next time you drive a nail, especially, near the end of a board and it splits try it out !!

[FarmingSawyer]

Some of you may know this tip.. when hand nailing, turn the nail over and tap the pointed end with your hammer. This reduces the splitting action when driving the nail. Honestly, it's not an old wives tail, it really works. Next time you drive a nail, especially, near the end of a board and it splits try it out !!

That works good if you're using finish nails.....if your using framing nails you can do the same thing by putting the head  90˚ to the wood and hitting it lightly to make a starting divot.....

[Bruno of NH]

I like spruce for framing lumber
No shake or splitting like hemlock
Clear spruce for trim works great
Paints better than pine knots don't bleed like pine
Thanks Jim/Bruno of NH

[Chuck White]

Spruce is definately stronger than Pine.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Regarding the nailing issue...So Ole was putting up a shed and when his buddy Sven came and asked how it was going, Ole said that about half the nails had the heads on the wrong end, so he was throwing about half the nails away.  Sven said that was dumb and that those wrong nails were for the other side of the shed.

Seriously...Blunting the sharp end of a nail makes the nail tear the wood fibers instead of acting like a wedge and splitting the wood.

Spruce, pine and fir are combined into SPF species group and this group is widely sold in the eastern and central U.S. for framing lumber...estimates are that over 80% of the framing lumber sold in GA is SPF, even though southern yellow pine is dominant in the forest..  That is, GA is the #1 forested state in the South, but the framing lumber is SPF from Canada.  SPF lumber is almost all from Canada.  It is also true that SPF is not allowed or used for longer spans for floors and roofs because it is not as stiff as SYP and most other common species.  But, SPF is also lighter weight and nails easily.

Eastern hemlock in the past was widely harvested for the bark (as previously mentioned) and then the debarked tree was left in the forest.  There was so much shake and low grade wood that it was not profitably sawn in many cases.  Pulp markets were more profitable than sawing...true, even today.  This species does not treat well unless it is incised, so RR tie use was and is restricted.  Today, the butt logs are often not profitable to saw due to low quality...shake, wetwood, etc.  Overall, eastern hemlock lumber is not widely found in the marketplace due to its low profitability.

[wfcjr]

Spruce, pine and fir are combined into SPF species group and this group is widely sold in the eastern and central U.S. for framing lumber...estimates are that over 80% of the framing lumber sold in GA is SPF, even though southern yellow pine is dominant in the forest..    It is also true that SPF is not allowed or used for longer spans for floors and roofs because it is not as stiff as SYP and most other common species.  But, SPF is also lighter weight and nails easily.

If SPF is not allowed for longer spans for floors & roofs, what species are?  Reason I am asking is that we are going to build a new barn and would like to use as much lumber as we can from our property.   Predominant species in the softwood stands are red spruce.   I am pretty sure that we can use that for the shiplap siding.  But am wondering about its use in floor joists, roof rafters/joists and for the larger timbers that frame the structure. 

[Bruno of NH]

You can span floors and roofs with SPF do it all the time .
Look  for a span chart .
In roof and floor trusses  syp is used on some cords top/ bottom for longer spans .
A floor can be framed 16 inch or 12 inch for more strength .
Jim / Bruno of NH

[Bruno of NH]

Grade you wood or cull it.
Lumber yards send us junk lumber all the time.
I send it back it passes grade .
Junk framing lumber junk spruce fir syp or hemlock .
Good wood has few knots smaller the better no shake little wane .
Jim/ Bruno

[Billbob]

Up in this neck of the woods spruce is the lumber of choice for framing.  Has been for as long as I can remember.  To my knowledge pine is not often used for framing.  Some of the local commercial mills do not like to take red pine as it does not have the strength that spruce has.  Pine is mostly used for furniture making, cabinet making, etc.