Old growth heart pine

[Josh Robinson]

Had a friend look at it who will take it down soon. It looks like I might be milling an old standing dead Long leaf pine thats about 3’ diameter. Assuming the bugs haven’t taken it I’d like to build a workbench with some of it. What’s it like to work old heart pine? CS has me thinking about a solid wet slab for the top. Any thoughts or advice?

[William Fretwell]

I’ve worked with it, mine was very old from the first trees cut down in Canada stored in the attic of a very old sawmill until it closed, over 120 years old!
Don’t waste it on a workbench! It could make lovely furniture!
Florida has some good hardwood I believe. Find some non furniture grade for the bench.
It will take some very careful slow drying which would delay the bench a few years, not a good idea!

[Jim Koepke]

Questions before thoughts…

Do you know how long it has been dead?

What kind of mill will you be using?

It could be quite buggy inside.

If the wood is good my thought would be to try and cut a piece a few inches on either side of the center. Then cut out the pith and make a split top bench.

jtk

[Josh Robinson]

I’ve worked with it, mine was very old from the first trees cut down in Canada stored in the attic of a very old sawmill until it closed, over 120 years old!
Don’t waste it on a workbench! It could make lovely furniture!
Florida has some good hardwood I believe. Find some non furniture grade for the bench.
It will take some very careful slow drying which would delay the bench a few years, not a good idea!

William, what dimensions would you mill it?

[Josh Robinson]

Questions before thoughts…

Do you know how long it has been dead?

What kind of mill will you be using?

It could be quite buggy inside.

If the wood is good my thought would be to try and cut a piece a few inches on either side of the center. Then cut out the pith and make a split top bench.

jtk

Jim,

It’s been dead about a year. Haven’t found anyone to mill it yet. The couple I’ve talked to so far can’t mill one that big.

[Tom M King]

I work with it most days, but it's almost always old stuff in 200 year old houses, or recycled out of industrial building beams. I don't think you want a bench top out of it, or you will never stop getting rosin transferred to something. It quite valuable in the right circles.

[Josh Robinson]

What if I kiln dried and laminated the top? Would that dry up the rosin?

[Mel Fulks]

Never heard of kiln drying it. Some of it has a lot of rosin , some does not. I don't see anything wrong with using it for
a bench ,as long as one understands it's pricey stuff, and decides to use it anyway.

[Rafael Herrera]

If you're talking about long leaf heart pine, it can be dense and sappy wood. I had some flooring of this type of wood installed in my house. It's very expensive, I think it was $18 per sq. ft. The only places you can get in decent amounts are salvaged buildings or floated logs from the bottoms of rivers from back in the day. It's beautiful stuff, quartersawn it has great chatoyance, think twice about using it on a bench.
435590

I got my flooring from this company, heartpine.com.

Rafael

P. S. Just a couple more thoughts, don't equate this lumber to the other species of pine you get at the big box stores, they're miles appart. They depleted the old growth forests by around the 1920s.

[Jim Matthews]

Old Growth long leaf is amazing stuff. Some sections should have dense growth rings, making it resilient and tough. I'm with Rafael, look the boards over before committing them to bench duty.

So rare is this, today that a more central display might be appropriate - dining tables, tops of dressers, etc.

[Tom M King]

We paid $27 a board foot for 20' long, clear, quarter sawn flooring. The Southern Long Leaf is still grown in some places, but not around here any more, even though we have the right type of soil. It grows so much slower than Loblolly, that anyone growing it is not planning on getting any money out of it in their lifetime, or not if they intend to grow large saw logs.

All Pine is Old Growth, or Virgin Growth. It doesn't grow from a cut stump, so there is no second growth, or more. At least, none of the Pines that grow around here, and one of the things I do for income is grow Pine trees.

[Jim Matthews]

All Pine is Old Growth, or Virgin Growth. It doesn't grow from a cut stump, so there is no second growth, or more. At least, none of the Pines that grow around here, and one of the things I do for income is grow Pine trees.

Hold the phone.

The way it was explained to me, using words small enough that I could understand: it's from an Old Growth forest *if and only if* no logging has ever taken out trees.

Longleaf Pine was once prized because the first 20 feet would be free of branches - where saplings had to first clear the understory shade. Where logging cleared the lower canopy, faster growth yielded lower quality.

The original stuff is so durable that it is still reclaimed from industrial demolitions, after 150 years of service.

It's that tough.




https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-old-growth-forests/

[William Fretwell]

If you can find someone with a large enough saw miser type mill it will handle that easily. The middle I would mill at 2”, thinking table tops, allowing for planing. When dry a band saw can split strips for drawer fronts. The outer part would be 4” for structural legs/frames. Watch it as it’s milled and when the colours and heart grain spread across a good area change to 2”. A guy near me has one and a huge covered open ended barn, (think 6 combine harvesters) I get to leave my wood there if I wish, he has lots to buy. I melt candle wax on a camp stove and brush the end grain with it to minimise splitting as it dries.
My old pine had no resin, it was a tough hard wood, knot free, wonderful colour. It became a huge kitchen/dining table with full drawers and yellow milk paint turned oak legs. Irreplaceable wood.

[Tom M King]

Here's a picture of what I used those 20' long Southern Long Leaf Pine boards for. You can see the replacements. This is an 1828 museum house. The wainscotting replacement pieces were also that long, but it was impossible to get any resawn out of the old timbers that were clear. Fortunately, this room has some knots in the wood anyway. These were resawn out of old timbers, that almost always had the pith in the large ones, so it's very limiting in how wide you can get boards out of them, without splits.
http://historic-house-restoration.com/images/ElamsHouse_Oct._2012_052.JPG

[Josh Robinson]

Nice work Tom! So in north Florida we call old pine stumps and logs that are very hard and very resinous, fat wood or fat lighter wood. Is heart pine from an old long leaf tree, that’s only been dead one year, like that?

[Robert Engel]

There is no old growth pine anymore to speak of. That was all harvested out of the SE 100+ years ago. All the pines in FL are at the very most second growth, IOW 100+ yrs old. Therefore, the amount of heart in any given tree is extremely variable. I've had 30+" pine trees >90 yrs old cut off my property with only maybe 6" of heart. You're never going to get the type of wood Tom pictures out of anything we have today. Those trees back then were 4-5' in diameter and had huge hearts.

I have a client who owns an old plantation new me that has pictures of his ancestors hauling logs with an 8 mule team. Looking at the men, I would estimate the log was close to 6' in diameter. That is old growth pine!!


Josh, I've had a fair amount of experience with this. You've got a few things to think about. Having been in your position, I can tell you after a year the borers have done a lot of damage. Look in the bark and at the base of the tree for tell tale signs of sawdust. Under the bark is it will be even more apparent. Around here (NE FL), the sawyers call the beetle bored pine "Levi Pine" because the fungal invasion that turns the wood blue.



You'll need to find someone with a big bandsaw mill, preferably who can come to your house. Having done that, all I can tell you is be prepared to spend a few dollars, and also be disappointed.

I've had numerous pines off my property milled over the years. Aside from the fact I didn't need the lumber, the borer problem is so bad, the last 6 I had taken down I had hauled off. I'm sure there was some good lumber in there, but the borer issue to so had up here its not worth it.

If it were me, I would have the tree downed by a tree surgeon, cut a few cookes off and take a peak inside.

Another issue you may run into is many sawyers will not mill lumber from trees off a homeowner's property due to imbedded metal.

If you do have the tree milled, it would need to be treated to kill the borers, usually by kiln drying.

[Josh Robinson]

Robert, can you give me an idea of what I should expect to pay to mill it if by chance it’s still good? (Suwannee County) I think there will be at least a 20’ log and a 10’ log and they will be brought out to wide open pasture for easy access by the mill and tractor or other equipment.

[John K Jordan]

Jim,

It’s been dead about a year. Haven’t found anyone to mill it yet. The couple I’ve talked to so far can’t mill one that big.

36" is large for a bandsaw mill. My Woodmizer claims it will handle 28" but that would be a real chore.

Maybe look for someone with a swing mill. A swing mill uses a circular saw blade which makes repeated vertical and horizontal passes to remove boards from even a huge log. A swing mill is typically set up on a frame around the log and can often mill a log on the ground where it fell. I've heard of people cutting 6' diameter logs on a swing mill. The size of the circular blade limits the dimensions of the planks so wide slabs must be done another way.

You might contact a swing mill company like Lucas to see if they have a list of sawyers in your area. Also, check woodfinder.com.

I've never worked heart pine. Almost every room in our timber frame house is floored with reclaimed old-growth heart pine - I love the look.

A 36" diameter dead tree standing one year possibly has significant insect damage on the outside but the inside may be untouched. You'll know more once it's on the ground and cut into logs.

Some types of pine have resin pockets that will give you grief when working and finishing unless the resin is "set" by heat. Typically the wood is kiln dried first then as the final step the heat is raised to set the pitch. Check the forestry forum and woodweb for details.

JKJ

[Ben Ellenberger]

Hold the phone.

The way it was explained to me, using words small enough that I could understand: it's from an Old Growth forest *if and only if* no logging has ever taken out trees.

Longleaf Pine was once prized because the first 20 feet would be free of branches - where saplings had to first clear the understory shade. Where logging cleared the lower canopy, faster growth yielded lower quality.

The original stuff is so durable that it is still reclaimed from industrial demolitions, after 150 years of service.

It's that tough.




https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-old-growth-forests/

that’s how I’ve always understood it too. Trees that grow in a forest with a canopy tend to have tighter growth rings and fewer knots. If they grow in an area that has been logged then they have wider annual rings and they grow more branches down low, so they have more knots.

I’ve been in a forest near Santa Cruz that had old growth redwoods which were cut 100 years ago and never hauled out. The trees are 8’ in diameter with super tight growth rings. They’ve been sitting on the ground for 100 years and haven’t rotted.