Black locust for fence posts and decking

[SawyerBrown]

Meeting with a potential customer on Monday with a huge number of black locust logs to mill (city is clearing), and I don't have much experience.  He's talking about using most of it to build a fence around the property once the city gets done with their project, and maybe some of it to rebuild a deck on his house.  Search on the FF is sometimes conflicting ...  So any opinions on the following?

1) When is the best time to mill it?  Some say pile and let the bark and sapwood fall off, then mill ... but doesn't it get harder with age?  so should it be milled immediately?

2) Since only the heartwood is durable, I assume you'd avoid leaving any/much sapwood?

3) I also assume that you'd need to at least air dry fencing (don't want it to shrink and pull apart), and the same for decking.  But any need to kiln dry either?

Any other advice?

Many thanks!

[GAB]

SawyerBrown:
I sawed some black locust for a fellow one day.  I had been told that it was a wood that was high in silica and that the blades would dull fast.  I did not get to find out as I had a box of bad blades and broke six, all in the weld, (the manufacturer replaced all of them) and hit metal with the next two (the customer paid for those two).
If you do saw some I would like to know if it dulls the blade quickly, as I have been told it would.
Gerald

[mesquite buckeye]

What I cut is no worse than hickory on the blades. ;D

You could use all the wood if you treated the sapwood, or just let the non resistant wane disappear with age. Usually the sapwood isn't all that thick anyway.

[GAB]

What I cut is no worse than hickory on the blades. ;D

Thanks for the info/reply.
Gerald

[mesquite buckeye]

What i see from the woodworking end the wood is a bit splintery, so it would probably be best to use it green if you don't want it spitting on something like fencing when you nail it... or drill it first if you use it dry. ;D

[Dave Shepard]

I've sawn a bunch of it. Saw it green. Only reason to let the bark fall off is for unsawn posts. It will dull a band faster than oak. Iget good results with a 4° band.

[WDH]

Black locust only has a few annual rings of sapwood.  Usually less than 3 or four, so I would just ignore it. 

[Ron Wenrich]

I've sawn a fair number of black locust, but on a circle mill.  We only sawed them when we had an order, so many were sawn in the springtime, when guys were putting up fence.  But, sawing green was always better as there isn't quite as much fine dust.  When it dries out, the fine dust is like powder and coats everything.  Also makes it harder on the lungs. 

I never worried too much about the sapwood.  It isn't that thick, and usually you could slab it off or edge it so there wasn't too much loss in footage.  My production numbers were always down in locust due to the size of logs. 

We did sell a few boards for decking.  They had to be planed in order to be useful.  I put as much into posts as I could, as they had more value than boards.  Small logs give narrow boards.

[Cedarman]

The posts that you are going to saw, I would do as soon as possible.  For round fence posts 2 options work best. One is to debark the day they are cut.  Each day you do not peel, the tighter the bark will be.  After a couple weeks the bark is glued on.  Lay the posts out on the ground and drive over them with tractor, loader or whatever you have that will go over the logs.  You cannot hurt them unless you have a monster loader and I doubt you would hurt them even then.  This will loosen most of the bark and make them very easy to hand peel.  Just use a screw driver to get a piece started and pull.  Some posts will be completely peeled when you drive back and forth over them.  They will now be extremely slick.  It is like they are greased.  Let them dry for several days and they will be easy to pick up with forks or manhandle.  Watch out for the small thorn like protuberances on some of the logs.  They are like small spikes and will pierce your hand.
Second way is to stack for a year or two and let the bark loosen.  Then when handling the logs the bark will pretty much fall off.  The aroma is not all that pleasing of dead locust bark.
If you really want the posts to last, build a 3 foot wide fire and 15 ' long  and place a green wet log close to the fire.  Lay the locust posts with big end in fire so that about 3' chars.  Takes just a few minutes.  Rotate logs one time.  Doesn't hurt if the wood starts to char.  This "seasons" the sapwood and you will have a post that will last for many, many years.

[thurlow]

Don't remember ever sawing any, but black locust WAS what we used for fence posts way-back-when.  We ignored the sap wood and just stuck 'em in the ground.  Cut in the winter-time, they'd typically last 40-plus years; cut at any other time, they'd last for less than 10 years.  We typically would cut several hundred at a time and stack 'em in stacks of 100..........10 x 10.  Usta have a homemade post splitter which would split an 8-foot post, made just like a firewood splitter.  Neighbor borrowed it about 12-15 years ago and I haven't seen it since.  We swapped over to metal "t" posts about 25 years ago, when the price of farm labor made the locust no longer cost effective............

[Al_Smith]

Back in the day when the air was somewhat cleaner and talk of sex was dirty they just chunked locust and osage orange in the ground .They didn't get concerned about the bark at all .

Just stapled the fence too it .It would last longer than the wire fence .