White ash uses

[Wilkins]

I have a number of large white ash trees in my bushlot that are falling victim to emerald ash borer. It breaks my heart to witness the death of these beautiful creatures. I am debating the purchase of a sawmill to make lumber from these trees.  I have no experience with milling or using non-commercial building materials. I could use dimensional lumber for framing or exterior siding of outbuildings. From my reading it appears that white ash might not be suitable for these uses. I would love to get input from anyone with experience in milling, drying and use of white ash wood

[WV Sawmiller]

  I have used ash for my rafters on my pole barns I built to store my lumber and am happy with it. Clear ash lumber makes beautiful furniture. I have one local wood worker who prefers it to most any other wood. I use it for flooring in my small sheds and composting toilets. I make 8/4 live edge primitive benches from it.

  It is hard and very straight grained and you need to pre-drill it to held get your fasteners in and to help keep it from splitting.

[hersnsh#590]

I make 5/4 grade stakes from the straight grain sap wood.  I've also used it for rough flooring in a remote cabin site.  It seems to work well for both.

Dale

[Magicman]

 

 


 
Dried, planed, & T&G Ash Flooring, and this was not "rough" flooring. 

[Brad_bb]

You don't need to buy a mill, but you can if you want.  Most mills are a back ordered a year.  If you can find a used one, you'll pay almost as much as a new mill, or at least a lot more than you would have a couple years ago.  You can get the logs ready and hire a mobile sawyer to come, or trailer your logs to a sawyer.  You just need a place to store the stacked and stickered wood after it's milled.  Inside a pole barn is best.  it can be stored outside, but you need to  put a roof on it(tin with weight) and protect it from the sun.  I'd prefer it in polebarn out of the weather.

Ash is great wood for so many things.  I've used it for Cabinets, trim, 2x8 T&G for my barn interior.  If it's dying now, has been dead for a season or two and sometimes more, and still standing, the wood should still be perfectly good.  I milled all the standing dead ash on my new farm, over 300 logs, into 2x8 and 2x6 for T&G, and some side wood 5/4 boards and some handle stock.

Ash is a great wood to work with and most of it will be gone soon.  It was one of the most predominant species here and now I have only a handful of surviving trees.  They are smaller and the beetles don't seem to attach until they get over 5 inches.  I think the beetle population has dropped dramatically because so many Ash are gone now.  We'll see if any of these left survive.  They Also keep sprouting from the ground from seed.  Who knows if any will survive long term with the beetle here now permanently.

[WV Sawmiller]

   BTW - if the trees are still standing but dead be very careful when you go to cut them because they will drop big limbs on your gourd and often when they start to fall they will snap off half way up and the top will come back on you. Sometimes on mine the butt log and 1-2 above are okay but the tops are getting very soft and punky.

[Wilkins]

I appreciate the input on my questions about use of white ash. The pictures of the flooring made by Magicman are beautiful. The other suggestions for furniture or interior siding or rafter material are useful. I haven't heard of anyone using ash boards for exterior siding or framing lumber yet. If anyone has experience with this please let me know. Thank you to WV Sawmiller for the warnings regarding felling hazards. My ash are just beginning to die. I expect this next year will be the peak of my ash tree decline. Here in southwestern Ontario, over this past winter, loggers are working overtime dragging 10's of thousands of white ash logs out of Bush lots and off public lands. I expect that white ash will end up similar to American elm here. The majority will be killed off by the ash borer. There will be a few loners and many young trees that will survive. When the young trees get big enough and concentrated enough to make it worthwhile to the insects the borers will return to make another thinning. Sad :'(

[aigheadish]

This is a good example of what WV Sawmiller is talking about. This had been standing dead for a long time and we were out somewhere and came home to this... There's a good 50+ feet on the "top" side of this and the stump/post that is left standing (it kind of blends in but if you look closely) is probably 15-18 feet tall. I'm very happy my kids weren't playing under it when it came down. It's probably 2'+ at the base, pretty big.

[kantuckid]

 


 
Dried, planed, & T&G Ash Flooring, and this was not "rough" flooring.  

Historically speaking, many old fancy level Victorian homes were floored in wide board Ash. What I've seen was ~ 3-5" widths and mixed.  That material is highly sought after in the salvage market for re-use. 
Or you could start your own baseball bat factory? Ash is often used to mfg. store fixtures which might have become a dwindling market given the Amazon/web sales thing? Bars & restaurants furnishings too if you sell it. 

[beenthere]

I appreciate the input on my questions about use of white ash. The pictures of the flooring made by Magicman are beautiful. The other suggestions for furniture or interior siding or rafter material are useful. I haven't heard of anyone using ash boards for exterior siding or framing lumber yet. If anyone has experience with this please let me know. Thank you to WV Sawmiller for the warnings regarding felling hazards. My ash are just beginning to die. I expect this next year will be the peak of my ash tree decline. Here in southwestern Ontario, over this past winter, loggers are working overtime dragging 10's of thousands of white ash logs out of Bush lots and off public lands. I expect that white ash will end up similar to American elm here. The majority will be killed off by the ash borer. There will be a few loners and many young trees that will survive. When the young trees get big enough and concentrated enough to make it worthwhile to the insects the borers will return to make another thinning. Sad :'(

No good reason that ash cannot be used for these two uses.
Likely other woods are more available and traditional for these applications than ash.
Boils down to the effort you are willing to put into turning ash logs into these products. Pretty much the same for any species.

[DanMc]

I'm building a post and beam 9x12' garden shed for my wife.  The vast majority of the wood is white ash (beams, flooring, siding).  Beams had to be trimmed straight as they tended to bow when cut out of the log.  I didn't box the heart, so I had to deal with some stress relieving.  Hopefully they will stay straight!

Some of the flitches are being cut into live-edge charcuterie boards as gifts.  I cut them to length, put them in the kitchen oven at 180 degrees for a while, then flatten them out in the planer.  After finishing, I fill the grain pores with Johnson's paste wax.  

[Don P]

For food I use beeswax and mineral oil.

[Big_eddy]

If you do intend to make lumber out of them, cut them while they are alive.once they die, there is brown staining begins inside. It will ruin the look of the ash, and significantly reduce its value if you go to sell it.

Our son made our dining room table of Ash as his final high school woodworking project

[Brad_bb]

In the past, guys on here have complained about internal stress in Ash.  I'm assuming that was in green Ash.  I've cut almost exclusively standing dead since 2015.  I have not seen the internal stress problems in standing dead.  One of the benefits of the standing dead is that they are often much lower moisture content than green, and in my experience, don't seem to have the stress.  Ash is already a lower moisture hardwood.  So with the standing dead Ash, it can dry a lot faster than typical green wood.

It has a lot of uses, but if you need framing lumber, consider selling your Ash lumber and use the money to buy your framing lumber.  KD framing lumber will be easier for you to work with and cut to size.  With the ash, you don't have to worry about specific sizing, just get the best yield you can.

Magicman's flooring picture shows all clear boards.  With your Ash you will only get a small percentage of clear boards.  If you decide to make flooring or paneling, consider using mill run.  That means using whatever you cut.  The Knots, crotch grain, and bark inclusions can really look good and give character.  The 2x8 T&G I cut is all mill run.  I specifically cut logs to get crotch grain when I could. The character is great.  There are some boards I pulled from the finished T&G stacks and did epoxy fills where the voids were too big or where it seemed appropriate.  Maybe two dozen boards in hundreds.  The epoxy filled voids tinted black look really good too and you end up with very little waste.

[Walnut Beast]

Nice information from your experience with it Brad 👍

[ButchC]

Brad, I too bought a sawmill and cut all the dead ash from my farm instead of firewood and loosing it to rot. We don't have green Ash just white. Stress was not a problem in the trees in the woods but on the edge next to the fields where they tended to lean outward the stress was terrible. I learned to quit trying to make 5/4 lumber out of them when it was a problem and instead sawed it into 4x4, 4x6 and 8x8. What was too crooked for normal uses I cut 4 foot long or less and stacked it on skids about 4 foot high. It went like hot cakes to farmers, contractors and shops for cribbing. I worked in the big city and woukd haul a couple pallets to work. I didn't get  lumber prices but a whole lot more than firewood for sure. Ended up with a demand for it I couldn't fill as word got around and did well until the ash ran out.

[Al_Smith]

I've used it mainly for wood works like window sills ,valances etc .Hard would be an under statement .A dead ash might stand 8-10 years  but eventually the roots give way and over it goes .It will still be good for a number of years even on the ground .Mill the good logs and fire wood the rest .
I use red mahogany stain and to the untrained eye looks about like oak .
I've got a dead fall in the adjoining woods that's a dandy ,100 footer around 3 feet diameter  .I'll most likely have to use my little Oliver crawler to recover this one because unless I cut it into 8 feet logs my little Ferguson  won't be able to pull it .When I get around to it it will be an excuse to exercise my large saws ,100 cc and larger .

[WV Sawmiller]

   I also cut a number of them into 6X6 and 3X6 cribbing. I found it was a good use for short straight sections I'd find above the first limb.

   I could not find a standard for cribbing so I cut mine 2' long. Of course since then I have had people ask for 3' lengths. (If I'd cut them 3' they would have wanted them 41-3/4" anyway :.) My son and I used them to raise and load a used storage shed he bought and they worked fine for us.

[ladylake]

White ash is a good outside wood for fence rails , trailer decks.  No gound contact , it can get rained on but needs to dry out after.  Ther are hayracks around here over 30 years old.  Steve

[Crusarius]

White ash and black walnut look amazing together. Especially if you find the right pattern

[DanMc]

For food I use beeswax and mineral oil.

Oh, beeswax would be much better.  Thanks for the recommendation!!!!

[WDH]

Down here in the land of many creepy crawlies and no snow load, untreated ash is a dinner invitation to powderpost beetles if left outside   and used outside.  

[Al_Smith]

Bugs they seem to be every where .For some reason ants are very fond of partly green hickory .They eat it like candy .I little dousing of Seven  dust applied with a water applicator will make stack of firewood look like an ant grave yard .I don't know if that might work for beetles or not .

[beenthere]

Ants may nest in the wood, but they only move into decayed wood.  

[fluidpowerpro]

I'm of the understanding that if you spray the wood with a borate solution as is comes off the mill, that will prevent powder post beetles from entering.