Strange Pine

[Marcus Ward]

I was at the local lumber yard picking up some 1x4 pine for some drawers and while digging through their stacks for something that wasn't warped or damaged I found some strange looking pine. It's very yellow, the rings are much thicker than on the regular stuff, and it's much harder, almost like cherry or something. It looks like old pine I see in old buildings but much more yellow. It smells like pine but I'm wondering if I got my hands on some old growth pine by accident. I bought all the sticks they had and am really digging it for building these drawers. Can anyone comment? I'll try to get some pics.

[Wayne Morley]

Sounds like you have some southern yellow pine. It's common here in South Carolina. I used it to make the top of my workbench.

[Marcus Ward]

Well I like it! The stuff we get up here might as well be balsa wood.

[Tom Sherman]

Marcus, when I was a youngster in St Louis my dad used to get Yellow pine now and then for projects that he wanted to have strength and last a while. IIRC it can be split pretty easily but is nice looking when finished.

[harry strasil]

Marcus, what we get up here in Nebraska in the so called lumber yards is Hemlock Fir, I saw it on the bale they were unloading one day on the outside wrapper. Its very soft, a whitish color, the fibers tear instead of cut when chiseling unless the chisels are razor sharp, and it splits real easy when nailing or screwing near the end unless a pilot hole is drilled, its also very light in weight. I use it while out demonstrating so I don't wast good wood. One old old timer told me at one of the demos, "If you can make decent cuts with a chisel in that stuff, you must excel at sharpening and must really do a good job with real wood. BTW, my tools chests are made from printing plate packing cases that is Southern Yellow Pine. While I was in texas visiting my daughter years ago there were two semis of clear southern pine being offloaded, one load was all 3/4 stuff, the other was all 2 bys and 4x4's and 6x6's, I drooled all over the floor, it was a place that catered to interior finishing material. If I had those 2 loads up here, I could name my own price and have the undieing gratitude of WWers and Carpenters locally.

[Thom Sturgill]

Southern Yellow Pine is fairly easily found at the BORGs. I used it to build my workbench. http://thomjoy.us/00003.jpg