I sawed a really good Locust today. Made an 8" x 11"x 8' cant that is mainly clear. Now I'm deciding what to make out of that cant. This is really pretty wood. It would make a great outdoor table but I would have to mix some other wood to have enough. Maybe white oak legs and frame. It would last several life times.
Q,
Haven't cut any into boards yet. Did cut some 3" beams for a bridge for a client. Slabbed/Squared off some sides on poles to make a wood storage barn which were green wood. They cut real good. Cut some small trashy dry posts into 4X4s for a guy. So hard thought I was going to get a friction fire out of some of it. I see lots of locust for sale locally for firewood. Hurts my feelings to see so much wasted. I cut a lot last year for posts and some for a pole barn. I cut the limbs and tops up for firewood which burns real good.
Can you get hold of some small locust for legs and framing instead of the oak? If so it should last a really long time. I have some benches I made by splitting logs with chainsaw (before I got my mill), bored 1-1/2" holes in underside and split some dry locust and whittled down to 1.5" and drove them in for legs.
Good luck. Enjoy.
I guess your talking about black locust. Just sawed some a couple of weeks ago into 4/4 and 6 X 6 posts. I like sawing it as I think it smells good. I hate it in the spring as it blooms late and drives my allergy's nuts when going through that stage.
Some years ago I got to saw a lot of it. All went into landscape timbers and brought good green, because it was a green solution. ;D
Donde esta photographias?
;D 8) 8) 8) :snowball:
I am talking about Black locust (sometimes also called yellow locust because of the yellow tint to the wood I guess)
Green locust spells like green peanuts to me. When I had bees they loved it and made great honey from it.
I've sawed up some black locust for raised bed gardens. I hear tell that it brings top dollar for people wanting the same "green solution". Sawed green and seasoned, cut nice but slower of course in the seasoned stuff. It will outlast any other treatment method at least 2 to 1. There's 100 year old fence posts up here still in use if that tells you anything. The stuff turns into rock after about 10 years and will bend over anything you try to drive into it! If you're going to nail boards I would recommend drilling pilot holes so the ends don't split - it's similar to hemlock this way.
If there's no pictures, then it didn't happen ;D
:D So I've heard! Someday I'll get enough ambition to get pictures up of my little operation.
Black locust. Is that a tree that has black bark and thorns growing out of it? In the fall they have long bean pods. I have a bunch I been felling just to kill them off. Hard as hell to split for firewood, but burns hot and long.
Fishy,
Sounds more like a Honey locust or acacia than black locust. I'd need picture to tell. Both have thorns and beans but thorns are more plentiful and beans much longer on HL. If the beans are nearly a foot long and smell chocolatey is HL. BL tends to lose most of its thorns once it gets past bush size. A good straight section of BL actually splits pretty well. I split a lot of posts last year by hand (before I got my mill). For best results I'd score the log a couple inches with chainsaw the finish split with wedge.
I have a batch of small locust logs to saw for a customer. He wants 5/4 and 7/4 boards to make tool handles. I have never sawed 7/4. I think I will just use 2" drops and let the kerf make the 7/4.
I don't think black locust grows way down south past Virginia or so because I remember reading the southern fellas wishing they had some. It's probably honey locust down there. Honey locust grows up here too, I have some coming in now. It's pretty wood and burns well but it doesn't have near the rot resistance that black locust has.
Quote from: Ox on July 04, 2015, 03:47:30 PM
I don't think black locust grows way down south past Virginia
Oh yes it does. The North GA mountains have a lot of it. I have some on my property in Middle GA.
Black locust has thorns that are modified stipules, that is, they are associated with the leaf petiole. One simple thorn on each side of the leaf petiole, like in a rose bush. Everywhere there is a leaf, there are two opposing thorns at the base.
Honey locust thorns are modified branches. They occur anywhere on the stem, main bole, branches, etc. They are also multi-branched, and look evil. They grow right out of the main bole of the tree, and anywhere up the stem.
The leaves are both compound, but black locust leaves are only pinnate compound, meaning they are just once divided. Honey locust leaves are both once divided and twice divided. This is called twice pinnate compound.
The bark between the two trees is also very different.
Locust thorns will flatten a tractor tire. >:(
Ox
I wish I had some black locust too.
It grows across the road but not in my woods. Must be a soils thing.
I've seen these thorny trees in the timber was told they were locust, but never sawed any, I would like to see a pic of the ones we are talking about,
If it wasn't raining, I would walk to the back and take a picture. I will get one tomorrow. Sounds like HL that I have.
Well all I can say is that youall can keep your thorny trees ...
They hurt....
No, they give flat tires or stab you, but deer love there bean pods. >:(
Quote from: drobertson on July 04, 2015, 07:42:10 PM
I've seen these thorny trees in the timber was told they were locust, but never sawed any, I would like to see a pic of the ones we are talking about,
I have black locust pictures but there not good so you will have to settle for these honey locust pictures.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10125/PA250009.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10125/PA250013.JPG)
Larry those are the ones I've seen, we sawed them and left them, most of which was rugged and non accessible.
Thanks for the picture,
WDH - thanks for that info! I like learning new things from obviously educated men. Must be what I remembered reading was a guy down south that just didn't have any but it seemed like he made it sound like black locust just didn't grow south. Do you suppose they get much west of the Mississippi? I'm also guessing they don't like the extreme cold or arctic temps up north because when I visited my mother in Alaska all I remember seeing was some kind of birch and some kind of fir. Seemed like only 2 tree types in the whole state! This was southern Alaska, around Wasilla which is I think about an hour north of Anchorage.
FWIW, I have very rocky, clay soil here and black locust loves it as does the few honey locust that are taking off. Bedrock is an average of 2 feet down. It seems to like to mingle with mixed hardwoods as opposed to my red pine "plantation" planted back in the CCC days. Maybe the needles and stuff falling off the pines makes the soil bitter for the locust? Plenty of other mixed saplings are growing in between the rows of red pines but what few locust ever tried there died when young and around 5" diameter and 20 to 30' tall. Still standing tall and proud after 15 years or so, deader'n a door nail. I should make some tool handles outta them.
Ox we have both here in SW Missouri and if there is one tree that I hate ,the way Magicman hates sweet gum, the honey locusts are it! I have had to fix more flats and cut more of them out of hay ground than I care to admit. If you look close at the picture I use for my avatar you'll see that the top of the load is black locust.
Larry, that is the locust I have, so I guess is HL. Is the lumber any good for anything? It looks nice. I like the wood grain in it.
Ox,
As you can see from the map on this page http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=40, black locust is most common in the Appalachian Mtns, and ranges naturally as far west as Eastern Oklahoma. However, due to planting, the range of black locust has increased across much of the Eastern US.
Honeylocust has a broader natural range and is more commom in the Mississippi Valley. http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=30
:D This reminds me of that older movie, Short Circuit with the robot always saying, "Need INPUT!". I love input. Thanks for this information, I really appreciate it. If I didn't know any better I'd look at the map of black locust and say it didn't grow in upstate NY. Oh, but it does! How the heck I got honey locust here I'll never know but I have just a few saplings growing as we speak. I don't remember any growing anywhere else around up here in all my life.
Plowboyswr - I can appreciate your dislike for honey locust after seeing the pics of the nasty thorns on them. For sure, they look like tire killers. We have that problem here with thorn bushes/crab apple/thorn trees. I'm not sure the proper name for them. But they have needles that get to maybe 2" or so and are thick and very strong. Always are there and in the dead of winter the smaller ones will be buried in snow and you'll get them with your tractor when fetching firewood or skidding logs. Once in a while you'll accidentally brush up against a taller one and you come out of the woods looking like you pithed off a large cat.
Ox, best bet is to kill all HL. It spreads like wild fire. >:(
Fishy,
I'm not sure need to kill them all but they can be a problem and I've heard they can spread quickly if you are not careful. I think HL is sometimes planted as an ornamental. First I ever saw was near Auburn Ala. Our wildlife professor showed us (Wildlife Biology students)one on a hunting lease he was a member of which I think was an old abandoned homestead. He advised us deer loved the beans so it does have some wildlife value. There are several here in WV at a big flea market I frequent.
I do like BL much better. Only issue I have with BL is it grows on any bare spot including hillsides (normally a good thing) but is shallow rooted and every few years we will have several days of soaking winter rain followed by a hard ice storm. In addition to the power lines falling the BL is the first to go and often has a domino effect taking down whole hillsides. Other than that is great. Wonderful fence post and poles for barns and preferred firewood around here.
Yep, deer do love the bean pods. That and coons. That is what spreads the seeds. Every chance, I will throw them. Like I said, they will spread like wild fire in just a year around here.
Honey locust thorns are modified branches. They occur anywhere on the stem, main bole, branches, etc. They are also multi-branched, and look evil. They grow right out of the main bole of the tree, and anywhere up the stem.
To me this implies that any locust I find without or with minimal thorns is black locust. Is that a correct assumption?
No. There are ornamental varieties of thornless honeylocust where the thorns have been bred out.
The key is the placement of the thorns and the leaves. Stipular thorns are always in pairs at the base of the leaf petiole (stalk that attaches the leaf to the twig). Like a rose bush or a blackberry bush. This is black locust.
Honeylocust thorns are never just in pairs at the leaf petiole; they occur anywhere.
Black locust thorns are always single thorns. Honeylocust can branch wickedly. Check out how these honeylocust thorns that appear randomly on the tree and see how they are branched. http://mosurvival.blogspot.com/2012/06/honey-locust-thorn-tree.html
He is picture of the simple, paired thorns of black locust. http://www.portraitoftheearth.com/trees/blacklocust.html
In developments, cities, and in areas where people live and plant trees, a thornless locust could be either species and horticultural varieties of both black locust and honeylocust have been developed.