For the sweet gum haters

[Larry]

The only good sweet gum is a dead one........ 

It's a hard sell so I've been sitting on quite a bit. Turned into stools it moves out pretty good so I decided to try a chair.

[customsawyer]

That is Sweet. Great craftsmanship.

[thecfarm]

A good choice!!

[Machinebuilder]

That is beautiful

[ron barnes]

Beautiful!!

[YellowHammer]

Wow!

[Magicman]

Awesome chair!! 

I only hates Sweetgum when it sprouts/grows in my open pastures.
 

I have sawn hundreds of SG logs and it is unusually beautiful stuff.

[Ron Scott]

Very nice chairs.

[barbender]

 Wow! To be fair, with that level of craftsmanship I don't think it mattered what kind of wood you built it out of👍👍

[caveman]

That is a gorgeous chair.  Sweetgum is beautiful wood, but it sometimes has a behavior problem during the drying process.  Thank you for sharing pictures of the chair.

[Mr. Buck]

@Larry that's a nice looking chair!  Do you produce those by hand or is there CNC work in it?

Also, how is sweetgum to work with? Is it fairly stable?  I have a fair amount on my property. Any tips on either milling it or building furniture with it? 

[Larry]

Its all handwork.

I'll give you my impression of sweetgum but I only have limited experience with it so may not be all that accurate.

It mills very good. I air dried some in a enclosed building and it was great. I also air dried some outside with tin on top of the stack. It warped badly, I think the cause was because wind blown rain got in the stack. I had to shorten a lot of the boards to use the lumber.

Once dry, it machines well, better than oak but not as good as cherry. The wood is on the soft side. I've made a few things with it and this chair. It does seem stable. So far I've not seen any wood movement in the chair. This chair has to compete for attention with walnut and cherry chairs at the table. The sweet gum always gets the most attention and complements. When I make stool seats from it they are really popular. My only reservation about using it in furniture is the softness.

 

[scsmith42]

Nicely done Larry!

[John Doherty]

It looks a bit like Black locust. Probably good for making pegs for timber framing due to the interlocking grain.

[JD Guy]

Really nice craftsmanship!  If you're interested we have as much sweet gum as you would ever need.

[TreefarmerNN]

Beautiful craftmanship, just wonderful.

I agree it mills ok and is soft.  I've found it's usually pretty high in moisture content as well which makes drying a challenge. 

I would not use it for pegs due to softness but railroad tie treatment plants like it as it takes treatment well and the combination of softness and interlocking grain means it's resilient to crush by train loads, rebounding better than a more brittle but perhaps stronger wood. 

The last SG tree I cut and milled went into cribbing blocks, either 4 x 6 or 6 x6.  Depending on the grain orientation they can be as much as 1/2" off in dimension now.