What caused this? This log came from my brother-in-law's house. When I seen it in a pile, I assumed it was oak? If it is an oak ,what caused the "character " in it?
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This tree is in Georgia.
Could it be tornado damage?
GAB
Interesting. We are not known for tornadoes in this area, not to say that there wasn't one at some point.
Bird peck?
Quote from: trimguy on May 16, 2021, 07:28:52 PM
Interesting. We are not known for tornadoes in this area, not to say that there wasn't one at some point.
The reason I ask about possible tornado damage is one time at the woodworking tool show at the Indy fair grounds one outfit had a box made from lumber of a tree that had been in a tornado, or so they claimed, and it had bark inclusions all over it that looked a bit somewhat like your boards look.
GAB
I like the bird peck notion. Maybe it had cicadas on the bark back when in the 17 year rotation we're seeing again now?
Count back the rings in 17 yr increments...;D
I see healthy trees that have lots of woodpecker action on them-mostly yellow pines with circle after circle of peck holes.
Something similar occurs regularly enough in hard maple that it is even a feature to look for and go after ( fad ). The cause is a boring insect that carries with it a fungus that takes hold in the wood and makes these elongated discolorations. Most often the hole is part of the feature and the effected wood sound.
I don't know if that's oak or not. It looks more like alder.
I cut a chunk off the end before I milled it ,I will count the rings and see what I come up with in the next day or two. Alder , I don't think I've cut any before. But I didn't know what this was.
The defect is bird peck. The bark and the wood color/grain don't suggest oak to me.
I'd say bird peck to.
The wood is hickory. Sapsuckers just love hickory.
WDH, Funny you should say that sapsuckers love hickory because around here I don't see that much. But there have been discussions on the forum before about sapsuckers and how, in different areas, their tree preferences differ. Here they are big on apple, pear, basswood and some others. But, now and then they go after trees you think they don't bother. And sometimes they will hit an individual tree hard, leaving other nearby trees of the same species alone; go fiqure.
I've often wondered what they saw or smelled or heard in those particular trees ???
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It looks like it happened multiple years. Hickory, that's funny, I remember when he brought these logs over about four months ago, he said there was a walnut on there and one of his guys wanted some gun stocks blanks out of it. " The highly valuable black walnut ". I should have known.I told him he did not have any black walnuts on his property. I would not have guessed Hickory. It does not have the light and brown contrast that I remember in some flooring I put down years ago.
Thank you for your help. I'm obviously not very good at tree identification yet.
It certainly is hickory. A highly valuable walnut hickory.
You would not believe how many times I hear this when I tell a landowner that their prized walnut tree is actually a hickory, "But it had nuts on it...." Yeah, hickory nuts :D.
Had a buddy proudly show me where he was going to tap his maples to make some sugar. Was trying to find the words to explain he was going to make Sweet Gum syrup if he followed through with the plan he had. Not that there is anything wrong with that.... Better than taping pine I suppose.
I doubt that you could even get sap out of that stuff.
Looks like that log was a leaner, too. The hickory lumber is going to be a beast to work with.
The log did have a bow in it. I needed a 6 x 12 beam, which left me with a 2 1/2 inch slab off each side. So, maybe it won't be too bad in those applications.Maybe I should lick it to see if Hickory sap would be any good. :D