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View Full Version : Hackberry - just became one of my OK species to cut



Todd Burch
08-29-2016, 1:02 PM
I cut two hackberry logs over the last week or so. Both turned out nice. Good cutting, not much movement. I did some "internet research" and it seems hackberry is one of the more under utilized trees. It's a lookalike for ash and has some of the characteristics of elm, in regards to interlocking grain. Also seems to be one of the best bending woods too. Who would have thunk? ;)

I cut a 7X7 beam from one smaller log and took several 1" boards from another.

There sure is a lot of it available around here too. Pretty much every fence line! I probably have several dozen here on my 6 acres.

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Note how the log, which was cut down for over a month before I cut it, had sprouted a new branch! That's some will to live!

John K Jordan
08-29-2016, 1:44 PM
I cut two hackberry logs over the last week or so. Both turned out nice. Good cutting, not much movement. I did some "internet research" and it seems hackberry is one of the more under utilized trees. It's a lookalike for ash and has some of the characteristics of elm, in regards to interlocking grain.

You've got that right! I've always heard from the "old timers" that hackberry was worthless, no good for lumber or firewood. I got some one day and sawed some boards. Then I cut some up and turned it on the lathe.

The guy I got this tree from told me it was elm so I've been thinking that until the other John Jordan (the famous woodturner) told me it was hackberry. I still have some chunks I'm saving for the right project. This figure was at the center of a very large tree.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343174&d=1472492341

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343175&d=1472492370

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343173&d=1472492341

I don't cut trees on our farm but have a bunch of hackberry, some over 30" in diameter. I'll certainly saw them if they come down some day.

JKJ

Malcolm McLeod
08-29-2016, 2:34 PM
I have always heard it referred to as a 'weed' tree. Fast growing (even faster if 'you' plant it next to your foundation or sidewalk:mad:), bad branching angles, heart rots out of the old ones, and brittle as glass in ice storms. And just to cap it off, it seems a perfect host for mistletoe. All-in-all it makes for a lousy tree. But, I too have seen positive references to the lumber.

It grows in all the fence lines because the birds eat the fruit and crap the seeds sitting on the fence wire! (Yeah, yeah, I know - - TMI)

Todd Burch
08-29-2016, 3:10 PM
The 3 logs I got were all blown over or broken up high from a wind storm. They seem to barber-chair when they break pretty bad too. One of the logs I cut had splits down it a considerable length from when it broke - made the yield not so great.

Nice turnings John! (Nice photography too!)

david privett
08-29-2016, 9:50 PM
well who would have thought , I have been using it for firewood when one breaks off( I thought it burned well also) but it is best to have a gas splitter to split this stuff, like said it is x grained.

Cody Colston
08-30-2016, 2:51 PM
I have some air-dried Hackberry that I sawed and some that is pretty nicely spalted. I also have some logs that have been "cooking" for over a year and that are probably close to either ultimate spalting or burn pile material.
It's not one of my preferred woods but it is plentiful. It's not one of my favorite trees, either. A Hackberry is just looking for a reason to blow down.

John K Jordan
08-30-2016, 7:31 PM
... A Hackberry is just looking for a reason to blow down.

Yikes, my experience has been different. Over the years I have had a lot of trees come down from a storm but never a hackberry.

If one comes down do the roots pull out of the ground or does the trunk break? If the roots come up your soil must be different than here.

Twice I have dug up a hackberry stumps and they took a huge amount of work. The first one I eventually got up with the backhoe after digging a 20' dia hole. The second one took days of work with the backhoe and bobcat before I got it to break loose. (Clearing for my shop a few years ago) If I hadn't been able to get underneath it might still be there!

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JKJ

Todd Burch
08-30-2016, 9:10 PM
Around here, the trunks usually break. Otherwise, they rot out at the stump and fall over.

Erik Loza
08-31-2016, 11:18 AM
Interesting. I always thought of it as a trash tree but ditto John Jordan's comments: Never seen one come down from a storm. In our neighborhood, it's always the elms that come down. My complaint with hackberry has always been its invasiveness but who would have thunk it could make nice lumber? Thanks for sharing.

Erik

Cody Colston
08-31-2016, 12:56 PM
Around here, the trunks usually break. Otherwise, they rot out at the stump and fall over.

Same thing here. I've had two large ones fall in the past three years. The first one took out the neighbors barb wire fence. I was standing on the shop porch during a thunderstorm and actually watched it fall. It was rotted at ground level. The second one broke off.

Ron Barnes
08-31-2016, 5:40 PM
I don't have pics but I have turned some beautiful bowls from spalted hackberry. I really like working it on the lathe.

Danny Hamsley
09-01-2016, 8:32 AM
I have a good bit of experience with it. It has spiral grain, and is tough to dry straight and flat without twist and warp. I am sure that it turns fine, but cut into boards, it is best quartersawn. I have some now that I sawed a few years ago, and there are some potato chips shaped boards that can only be used in 18" to 24" lengths because of twist, bow, and warp. As it dries, it kinks at the knots. It is best to only saw the big ones that are growing straight with no sweep. I think that it is very beautiful lumber for small projects. I sent some quartersawn hackberry with a high % of heartwood to a luthier in Australia to make a guitar.

John K Jordan
09-01-2016, 9:36 AM
Same thing here. I've had two large ones fall in the past three years. The first one took out the neighbors barb wire fence. I was standing on the shop porch during a thunderstorm and actually watched it fall. It was rotted at ground level. The second one broke off.


That is incredible to me! I wonder what causes the rot. Maybe a difference in soil condition?, climate?, different insects?, lightning damage?, a local fungus in the ground?, a species variation?, a different species locally called by a different name?, something else?

I think I mentioned we have many hackberry trees here, established trees from under a foot in diameter to huge. Never had a one come down. I've had huge oaks, maples, tulip poplar and others break off at the trunk, some at the base, a few high above the ground. Pines and cedars either broken off or pulled out by the roots. But never a hackberry. Curious.

This was my favorite oak tree incident. It required care to remove and flattened the fence. From the rings it was well over a century old. It made a lot of firewood.

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JKJ

Ed McEowen
10-19-2016, 8:59 PM
Keep an eye out for powder post beetles with hackberry.

John K Jordan
10-19-2016, 11:34 PM
Keep an eye out for powder post beetles with hackberry.

And with maple, and poplar, and walnut, and persimmon, and... Have you seen evidence that hackberry is more susceptible to PPBs than other species?

Once when I was chainsawing and waxing maple chunks just inside my open garage door I witnessed a "flock" of what appeared to be PPBs land and immediately start boring into the end grain, some right through the anchorseal! They were all flying in from the same direction, from some woods near the house. I assume they were hanging out in the woods and were suddenly attracted by the smell of the maple.

It was amazing how fast they could chew into the wood. I squished them at first then sprayed the chunks with some insect killer and they quit landing although they kept coming. I closed the garage door...

JKJ

Ed McEowen
10-23-2016, 7:43 PM
I know ppb's are worse in hackberry than walnut. My experience with walnut and the white oak family is that primarily the sapwood is vulnerable - hackberry is totally vulnerable. I don't have much experience with the others you mention. I can't say that hackberry is more easily infected, but once it happens your lumber will be riddled with holes and lots of powder. The logs should probably be quickly sawed into lumber, not kept for any length of time (that may have been my problem). After one disappointing experience, I have vowed to immediately kiln dry any future hackberry I saw.

Todd Burch
10-24-2016, 11:38 AM
I can attest. The hackberry I cut almost 2 months ago has lots of ppb holes in it.

I used one of the 2X's I cut as stakes for a building layout I am doing. Tough to rip on the tablesaw (harder than I expected) and pretty dense. It is working great for stakes. The stakes took quite a pounding to drive them into hard packed clay.

Most of the ppb holes I am seeing are in more of the pieces that were closer to the bark. I will also disclose I did not properly stack the wood after cutting it, but I don't know if that was a factor or not with regard to the ppbs.

ROY WALLACE
11-16-2016, 9:35 PM
I have seen hackberrys with limbs down and wood exposed but I have never seen lumber taken from it. I was under the impression that it was pretty much solid white. Are the darker streaks spalting or is that the the natural coloring of the wood?




You've got that right! I've always heard from the "old timers" that hackberry was worthless, no good for lumber or firewood. I got some one day and sawed some boards. Then I cut some up and turned it on the lathe.

The guy I got this tree from told me it was elm so I've been thinking that until the other John Jordan (the famous woodturner) told me it was hackberry. I still have some chunks I'm saving for the right project. This figure was at the center of a very large tree.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343174&d=1472492341

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343175&d=1472492370

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=343173&d=1472492341

I don't cut trees on our farm but have a bunch of hackberry, some over 30" in diameter. I'll certainly saw them if they come down some day.

JKJ

Wes Ramsey
11-17-2016, 4:45 PM
I sawed a few hackberry logs this spring. There was no spalting then and the wood was very white, but I haven't been back to see what it looks like now. We cut it for construction lumber, but if it has any spalting I may have to make a new desk from it.

Any idea if it is stable once dry?

Mark Greenbaum
11-18-2016, 11:34 AM
I, too, have turned a few bowls and urns from hackberry. It does spalt and mold rapidly if left green in a plastic bag with fresh turned shavings. So much so, that a fine bowl I made actually has green mold veins in it. The hackberry trees in middle TN get huge - 4'-6' diameter. And yes, they are susceptible to cracking in ice storms as well as falling over during heavy rains. I've witnessed both cases first hand. It is a pretty plain white wood until it spalts, then it gets crazy mapping. Really one of my personal favorites to turn,; right up there with Bradford Pear.

Mark Bolton
11-18-2016, 2:52 PM
I have a ton of hackberry on my place and the splitting in ice storms must be when the temps are cold enough for the tree to be brittle/frozen because we had a wicked ice storm here a while back and it laid the hackberry over like McDonalds arches but then never once snapped. The crowns and the bases of fairly large trees (10" and better) were both touching the ground. Many of them are still nearly in that position as they never stood back up after the ice and are still alive.

Ive cut a bit of it on the mill and have to adjust my hook angle on the blades because its so soft and fibrous that the mill will actually catch and snap/shudder similar to a blade snap but its just grabbing wads of long fibers out of the tree.

Its like a weed tree around here and have been told in was planted by the DOH along the highways and spread by birds. Not sure about the validity of that.

Bob Bouis
01-05-2017, 11:14 AM
I've gotten a couple sugarberry (southern hackberry) trees over the years, including one I just did recently. The most recent trees had both fallen over, roots and all. They were both on slopes, though, so it's hard to say whether it was their fault. The single most recent one had a lot of fungal stain at the base (though not a lot of severe rot) that probably contributed to it falling over.

While the logs were in my trailer in my suburban driveway, a swarm of beetles landed on the end grain and bored into it, through the anchorseal, just like John described. They didn't bother any of the other wood that was around, though.

My experience with the wood is that it stains from fungus very quickly and very deeply. The pieces I rough turned ended up covered in mold. None of them had interesting heartwood streaks like you sometimes see. But the blue stain fungus, when about half progressed, makes for interesting patterns. The wood is fairly hard, fairly heavy, and polishes nicely.

The most recent ones got cut into 4/4 boards, but I haven't checked on them since they were cut, so I don't know how they're drying. I did spray them with fungicide to hopefully keep the mold off them.

Todd Burch
01-05-2017, 4:41 PM
I picked up a couple sizable hackberry logs last week. Tree blew over back in May 2016 and died over the course of the summer. I'll slab both the trunk sections I got. The spalting looks to be good.

The big one is 11.5' long and the smaller is 8.5' long.

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