South Florida Trees for Woodworking?

[Steve H Graham]

Does anyone here know which South Florida woods are worth scrounging and using? I know of a few which people have had success with. We have live oaks, scrub oaks, and West Indies mahogany. I have also read that people get good results with citrus wood, when it's big enough to use.

This stuff is always lying around in trash heaps, so it would be nice if it turned out to be usable.

[David Keller NC]

This may be obvious, but West Indian (also called "Cuban") Mahogany is highly prized - $25 a board foot and up. There was a lumber dealer in South Florida that specialized in blow-down mahogany called Zombie Hardwoods, not sure if he's still in business.

Live oak's pretty difficult to work - the grain's interlocked, and it's tough to find one that has a decent length of trunk - most of the ones I see are all branches and a 5 foot tall trunk (thought sometimes that trunk is 12 feet across!).

[Steve H Graham]

It's pretty funny. My family has been in Miami since 1969, and until this week, it never struck me as strange that people threw their trees out. After Andrew, there were huge numbers of trees on the ground. I remember driving past a pile of trees on Old Cutler Road, and it was so tall, you had to move your face near the side window of the car in order to see the top of it. It probably covered an acre or more.

I'm originally from Kentucky, and my family has sold timber, so you would think I would have known that discarding hardwoods was silly.

As for live oak being bad for woodworking, I can't argue, because I don't know much about it. But I have seen some beautiful turned bowls on the web.

[Robert Parrish]

I lost a 30 ft live oak during Charlie from my front yard and had a hard time getting rid of it since no one wanted it. I wasn't doing woodworking at the time. We also have a lot of tall pines that get knocked down during hurricanes. I buy all my hardwood from North Carolina.

[Gary Herrmann]

2nd plug for Cuban Mahogany. I grew up in Deerfield Bch and I've gotten some when I've gone back for visits after storms. Beautiful stuff.