Locust wood for lumber and other woodworking projects

[Duane Bledsoe]

My brother wanted me to ask why locust tree wood is not more popular among woodworkers and also as lumber for building?? He says (I do not know personally) that the wood is very strong and rot resistant, and as an example he says that some fences made from it that are very old are still standing without having ever been treated to withstand outside use like common pressure treated lumber of today has been. He also says it is a very hard wood and would be structurally stable for building and would last longer than pine 2x4's and such. Also it supposedly replenishes itself faster than pine does when it's cut for use and then replanted. I have no idea if he's right or not but he and I are curious to see what other woodworkers knew about it.

[Ron Kellison]

I've dug many a hole and planted black locust fence posts. I can vouch for the fact that it is decay resistent, very hard and somewhat prone to checking. Granted, this was several decades ago when I was still susceptible to being sucked in to "digging a few holes and putting up some fence". Back then, locust was highly regarded for fence posts (50 years in the ground) but wasn't considered much for lumber because it was reputed to warp and check quite a bit compared to "good" lumber like white oak, maple, cherry and pine. It was also quite hard when dried and was generally regarded in the same league as hickory i.e., one of the best woods for burning. I now suspect the hardness qualifications were primarily related to the fact that very few people actually knew how to sharpen a plane properly!

I've seen a few boards of black locust and honey locust over the years and it's actually quite an attractive wood. An interesting wood with occasional dark swirls in the reddish-brown wood, and a very tight grain pattern. I would contradict your brother on one point...I think it's a fairly slow growing tree and a large specimen would be 18" in diameter.

Regards,

Ron

[Jim Andrew]

I have a neighbor who used locust for flooring in his house. I don't have enough locust to cut to make much lumber. Lots of walnut, ash elm etc.

[Danny Hamsley]

Ron hit the nail on the head. It is strong, hard, and very rot resistant. It is hard to dry straight, checks bad, splits, and warps. It is just a difficult wood to work with, so, like the hickory comment, it has its place but will never be a popular wood for construction. After sawing up just about every species possible, I learned first hand why everybody likes oak, walnut, cherry, maple, and yellow poplar, and why elm, sweetfum, blackgum, and sycamore are considered "palletwood". It is all about how they behave.

[Dan Barber1]

I live in Tennessee and also know of black locust posts that have been in the ground for a long time. Actually have some on my place that may have been put there by my grandfather in the thirties. They're much weathered away now but the skeleton is still there and could hold up fence wire, in fact still does in a couple of places. The two best woods here for fence posts are black locust and eastern red cedar (which is actually a juniper). However black locust and honey locust are two different trees, the honey locust having large thorns and known around here as a thorn tree and not as weather resistant as the black locust. I've never tried to work black locust and don't know anyone who has, but I use the red cedar for outdoor projects because it works well and is so weather resistant. In fact I have a large finial I just turned from a piece of cedar that I will be putting up on the peak of a pyramid roof building this week. It was copied from a finial I saw at Mount Vernon on a similar building. I also turned four gate finials from cedar that are taken from Mount Vernon gate finials. Since they will be exposed to weather a long time without maintenance I painted them to provide more protection and to make them white to match the building and the ones at Mount Vernon. Cedar has a lot of knots but they usually don't affect your ability to work it very much.

[Ryan Mooney]

I salvaged some locust from a friends tree that blew over ~4 years ago. I guess it was a decent sized one (about 24" across at the butt) but got smaller to around 12" or less fairly quick and kinked some so nothing to long (only a few 3' and some 2' boards). I slabbed it up by eye with a chainsaw leaving it in pretty good sized chunks about 4-6" thick and full width to dry then cut it down from there.

My experience was:

tears out, the grain moves up and down and is fairly interlocked so its hard get a full length cut on it.
eats tool edges. I think it has a pretty high silica content (at least the piece I had did). Mayhap a higher angle on the blade would have helped, but its pretty rough stuff to work for sure.
It didn't seem to twist all that badly, but this was one of the nicer chunks I've found (which is why I bothered at all) so YMMV.

It is fairly pretty wood once you get it worked down though.

[Frank Drew]

However black locust and honey locust are two different trees, the honey locust having large thorns and known around here as a thorn tree and not as weather resistant as the black locust.

Quite true; before I knew better, I use some honey locust rounds for posts and they rotted out below the ground in not too many years.

[Ronald Blue]

I defer the lumber qualities of black locust to those who have tried it. It is a great fence post second only to hedge(osage orange) on longevity. I have used a lot of it and honey locust for firewood. It had good heat production and split pretty easily. Obviously you have to use caution handling honey locust because of the long thorns. Even black locust has small thorns on the smaller branches. I often thought the color and grain texture of honey locust might be neat for wood but I wasn't even attempting any woodworking in those days. As far as hardness black locust is similar to hickory and honey locust is similar to hard maple. Here is a link to the Janka hardness scale if you are so inclined to look. http://www.sizes.com/units/janka.htm

[Max Coller]

Back when I was a younger malcontent, I decided I probably needed to make a shillelagh for personal protection against both the unknown unknowns and my older sister. My dad suggested that I wander down to the pasture where the black locusts grew like weeds and knock one over with the hand saw, make myself a blank, let it dry behind the franklin stove for a few months and turn it on the lathe. So I did - except being somewhat overly enthusiastic, I chose the biggest tree of the herd and it took me almost a day's work with that hand saw to get it to lean over. (Now that I think about it, it was probably mostly a ploy to keep me busy and out of other trouble.) So I cut a log out of this tree about 8 inches in diameter and 4 feet long, dragged it back to the house and propped it up behind the Franklin stove. Next spring, we tried to quarter it with the table saw - and in the dimly lit machine shed, you could see sparks mixed in with the sawdust coming off of the carbide blade. Our initial assumption was that I'd dragged it through too much sand and grit, so I peeled the log with a drawknife, and we started to try to split it again. Same thing - more sparks.

That stuff is haaaaaaard, and the silica content is murder on tool edges - even carbide. If you're a fan of rustic furniture and can work it green, it might be worth the trouble too make some outdoor furniture that would never rot under normal conditions. If you want nice 1x8 planks for an exterior morris chair - well, good luck with that.

[Bob Falk]

If you really want to know about Black Locust, check out this link (loads slow). Apparently it grows well in Hungary and they use it extensively. A very comprehensive presentation.

http://www.asla.org/uploadedFiles/CMS/Business_Quarterly/ASLA_Black_Locust_Lumber_Presentation.pdf

[Joe Arcimboldo]

I helped a friend build a bench last year, and we were looking for something tough for the top of the tail vise box. The fella at the lumber yard out in Swannanoa, N.C. said that locust was harder than hickory, so we gave it a try (even though I don't think that's quite right).

I had never used it before and I can say I'll probably never use it again for all the reasons already listed here. I especially concur with what Ryan said above about the the interlocking grain--it was really tough to get it smooth. The plane practically begged for mercy before every stroke and apologized for the results after every stroke.

The other thing I might add, is that its not particularly pretty, either.

[John TenEyck]

I was lucky enough to get some black locust logs from some storm damaged tree, which I sawed into lumber with my chainsaw and Alaskan Mill. Hickory is more difficult to mill than BL, but it was still slow going. I didn't have too much trouble with it warping or checking during drying; I find white oak to be more problematic. Working it was really no problem, IMO. I resawed some, planed and jointed a lot, ripped, cut mortises, etc.. I didn't think it was any harder to work than the normal hardwoods I use, and I had no sparks, etc. that others mentioned. Here's an outdoor bench I made from some, which I think shows off the wood quite well. I wouldn't hestitate to use it again if I every come by some more.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-f5Aox8exZqo/TEophLPLPjI/AAAAAAAADAY/zMKrmrRSTf0/s400/20090707_0002.JPG

[Bob Falk]

Beautiful bench!

[michael case]

I've heard of some wooden boat builders use it for frames as it is very hard an rot resistant. I also failed to see a a black locust stump cut close to sidewalk level and found it with my toe. Yes it's real hard!

PS. John that Is a beautiful bench!