Old Beech

[Richard Jones]

This was pushed down over the weekend at a house site. Approx. 30" dia. on the stump, the root ball you see is approx. 12' high. I'll be getting a bit of it tomorrow afternoon, but only what I can haul on my 5x10 trailer. Some of the limbs are 12" dia..................

I'm sure this one could tell lots of stories......................pretty sad, all in all...........

Rich209049

[Jim Burr]

Now see..when you say "old beech" I think of the one outside the back door...this one looks like a lot of work...and some pretty stuff!! Good luck!!

[Donny Lawson]

A little work will provide you some nice turnings later.

[Harry Robinette]

I'm not sure about your part of the country. But here Beech is hard to keep very long,it just deteriorates after a while.

[Richard Jones]

Harry,

Understood, I think the same way. I may try to spalt some of this, will rough out the rest and store this weekend.

R

[Nathan Hawkes]

Rich, be very careful with the roughed out pieces; I've turned probably a couple dozen Beech bowls, and lost many of them due to cracking, even when turned thin. It cracks if you look at it funny! Some of them I was able to save using dust and CA glue, but it warps quite a bit while drying, so I couldn't save everything. All the Beech I had was from larger trees as well, both close to 200 years old. I counted the rings; one 177, the other 230+! I don't know if the tight rings had anything to do with the cracking, but it was gorgeous wood from both trees. I have a lot of box blanks that have been drying for a few years, very well sealed in wax.
It does spalt easily; just put some in a shady spot, and put it down on one end, preferably in the dirt, and seal the other with wax very well. I didn't have any of the ends I put in the dirt split either; the moisture from the wet Virginia soil was enough. It spalts beautifully. It can develop punky spots fairly quickly though; little white striping that isn't a turn-off for me.

[Mark Patoka]

Like the others have said, you should be able to get some nice spalting fairly easily in our Virginia weather. My first experience with beech was a tree that blew down and laid on the ground for a year. I got to it before it started rotting and it had some great spalting. Seems like a nice wood to turn also.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beech does spalt well and turns nicely.