Loblolly Pine, anyone ever work with this wood? )Pics)

[Dave Shively]

Not being from the south I had never heard of Loblolly Pine. I hauled back about 460 board feet from Alabama where my friend had boards that were 52 feet long, 2 inches thick, 16 inches tall. They were joist in a bank built back in the mid 1800"s and were a clear span of that 52 feet. He gave me all I could haul back to Indiana. All I got were boards that have been ripped and were cutoffs.


Apparently it is old growth lumber due to the very tight growth rings. Has anyone ever worked or made anything from this wood? It appears to look like Douglas Fir.


Dave

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff436/gunny1956/loblollypine_zpsffcca97b.jpghttp://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff436/gunny1956/photo26_zpsc9c12953.jpghttp://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff436/gunny1956/photo13_zps12bb95a3.jpg

[Frank Drew]

Dave,

Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) is a somewhat faster growing cousin to the now largely disappeared Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris; both are (or were, in the case of the latter) important Southeastern timbers and grew tall and straight so were often used in ship construction and large commercial buildings. Your second picture, of the planed board on the table saw, looks quite a bit like the color and grain of reclaimed Longleaf pine (called Heart Pine or Old Pine around here). I'll bet it finishes up very nicely; my first job in woodworking, years ago, was at an architectural millwork where we processed and used tons of reclaimed Old Pine. The last time I used any for a job the best stuff was about three times the price of Mahogany.

[Tom M King]

I work with it all the time. It's the same thing as "Southern Yellow Pine", or more commonly just called "SYP". It has a bad reputation mainly because of the way it's processed these days. The old air dried stuff is about as stable as anything.

Up until the early 1990's, every house I built was framed completely with it, and most of the finish lumber was cut from clear SYP. Lumber companies back then, and before, would saw the lumber, air dry it on sticks for a year, and then kiln dry it slowly with sawdust burning steam heated kilns, and then mill it to final size. Straight boards stayed straight.

These days, they saw it, kiln dry it over night, and mill it to finished size the next day. Bundles are banded, and shipping asap. You'd better stand back when you cut the bands on a bundle, and any board that is straight today, may have a twist, cup, bow, and any other defect in a few days. This faster, cheaper method put all the mills out of business who did it to produce a quality product.

Typically, large commercial buildings were built from Long Leaf "Heart Pine" before the middle of the 19th century, but by then, they had cut down most of those trees. These days it's milled out of the old beams from the dismantled old warehouses. I work with that stuff all the time too. It can go from five bucks, to 27 per bf.

I don't know the value of old SYP, but I would take all I can get. Loblolly is what's planted, and comes up in Pine plantations now. My family has grown timber for a few generations, and a large part of it is Loblolly Pine. It's a very fast growing tree. It's not prized because it's had its reputation ruined by modern processing. Treated Pine is mostly treated Loblolly too. Loblolly is SYP.

[Ted Calver]

It does look like df, but to me it's a toss up between longleaf pine and loblolly pine, which were (are) both found in large pure stands in Alabama.

[Thomas Canfield]

I had some old Pine shelving that was only about 40 years old, but it was "brittle" to point of needing pre-drilled holes for screws and any nails close to ends would result in splits easily. It was good material for certain uses and glued well. My son had a nice kitchen table made from similar material that was glued up top. You got some good material there if you pick your projects.

[Kent A Bathurst]

SYP - Southern Yellow Pine - is a grouped species. It includes Short Leaf, Long Leaf, Slash, and Loblolly pine.

All of them have the same structural characteristics. From what experts have told me, once the trees are turned into boards, no one can tell the 4 species apart. Loblolly might be an exception, when you talk about 52 ' :eek: boards. The Loblolly are the ones that grow tall-tall-tall and straight. You see them every Easter in the TV brodcast of the Masters Golf Tourney.

And - in general - one of the big economic drivers in the SE has been the dvances in the past 40+ years in forestry. They can produce lumber in a much shorter growing cycle. Which means this farm-raised stuff does not have the slow-growth structural qualities of the ol-timey lumber. But, the prices are a fraction of what they used to be.

Oh, well.......and so it goes.

[Dave Shively]

Thank you all for the info on this lumber. I tried to count the growth rings on one board and got lost at 74 or 75 and given the back was built in the mid 1800's, that puts it around 220-230 or so years. I have never been a fan of pine due to the risen and sap that gums up the saw blades, but this wood is pretty so I'll use it and see what I can make with it. Again, thanks for the history lesson to a Yankee.

Dave

[Erik Loza]

My wife and I have two dining room tables that were commissioned works done by a friend, of LL Pine. Salvage lumber from Katrina. I cannot tell the difference between Loblolly (which is endemic to east TX) and the other forms of SYP. At least not in the finished result. Beautiful stuff, we really like it. Good luck with whatever projects you end up doing.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Jim Matthews]

I've used Old Growth "longleaf" pine that looked a great deal like this sample photo.
Mine was also beam salvage from local garment mills. Some of the spans exceeded 100 feet.

Those must have been some monsters, when they came down to the Sawmills.

If it's related - it's VERY hard, and requires a slow feed rate on most powered saws.
The sample I used was dense, heavy and required slow predrilling to hold screws.

This stuff wears like iron, but the annual rings become prominent with age.
Be prepared to sand or resurface the exposed face.

At this age, it's probably stable.

This was a Princely gift - the like of this lumber will be hard to find, in our lifetimes.
What will you make, with it?

[Dave Shively]

I'm learning more and more about the "Dixie Land" wood.

Jim, I'm going start off making a mantle and a kitchen table for my friend that gave me the wood. After all it was free to me.

Dave