8' tall X 12" diam Mesquite trunk--valuable?

[Dave MacArthur]

A friend had a tenant in his rental house over-prune his Mesquite tree to the point it died. One month it was a fantastic tree with a canopy spreading over the back yard, fully green... 3 months later, it was just an 8' high stump sitting in the ground, branches virtually removed. It hasn't come back, although it's not spring yet--but in Phoenix, most trees are putting out sprouts.

1. Would it be worth it for wood/experience to take the 8' trunk and try to make lumber out of it?
2. The tree has been essentially dead standing in the AZ dryness for 6 months now. Would I slice it up and THEN let it dry? Or let it sit as a log first? And how long?
3. Would it be reasonable to bandsaw some 3-4' sections of the trunk into lumber? I have a 14" delta now, but have been looking at 19" G 514x2 for a while now.
Thanks

[Dan Barr]

It would be well worth the experience. (assuming youre careful and dont get hurt.)

-If it's not checked (splits and cracks), go for it. otherwise, its a crap shoot as to whether or not youre going to get nice unchecked pieces when you mill. you cant predict the grain, but you can guess.

-Yes, slice it up first, then sticker it. Weight the top of the stack and cover it from elements or store in a rack in your garage and let dry at least 1 yr per inch of thickness.

-Make sure you make some substantial infeed and outfeed tables/supports to support your millwork.

It would be just fine to slice the entire thing into lumber.

you'll probably have a lot of fun. :)

ciao,

dan

[Chris Barnett]

Give it time. Might well come back but with the severe pruning, will take longer.

[Dylan Smith]

To save the tree: time and WATER. Not nearly enough rainfall this winter. But if the roots are alive, some water should help bring it back.

The mesquite trees in my yard aren't doing much yet. I expect 'em to take off again in a couple of weeks though.

[Eric Gustafson]

To save the tree: time and WATER. Not nearly enough rainfall this winter. But if the roots are alive, some water should help bring it back.

The mesquite trees in my yard aren't doing much yet. I expect 'em to take off again in a couple of weeks though.

Dylan's right, Mesquite really likes heat and won't grow untill it gets a lot hotter here. But if was severly pruned it might not ever look right again even if it does recover. I would harvest it. It should yield some nice wood and that stuff is expensive.

[Chris Padilla]

Mesquite is gorgeous, gorgeous wood and very expensive and long boards of the 8' variety are relatively rare so it would be quite the pickings to take it down and mill it up but if you do, TRY LIKE CRAZY to keep the long boards because they'll be worth more than shorties.

Good luck with your decision and take some photos so we can share in the fun!

[Richard M. Wolfe]

As far as the tree putting out. Here in north central Texas our mesquite is about the last thing to leaf out and it may be a month yet. Your mesquite is probably a different species and is certainly in a different climate so I would just be guessing but I'd give it another month.

If you get it milled either doing it yourself would probably be the way to go. When we get our mesquite a foot diameter trunk is the minimum we will mess with - anything else just doesn't produce enough boards to make it worthwhile. An eight foot trunk is nice, but is it straight? I mean really, really straight. You'd be surprised how little crook it takes to make a small trunk into nothing but firewood. We milled a number of things yesterday, and before I left we put a mesquite on the mill to do today and it was about twelve feet long and about 2' across the butt. But there's no way it will make twelve foot boards. It could probably make a few but for optimum production from the tree a lot of shorter boards makes more sense. Of the many, many feet we've milled about an 11 foot board is the longest that's come off the mill. But then unless it's for an unusual project like long moldings, etc short boards are all that's necessary for nearly all mesquite projects. Good luck with it.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

First of all Dave, I went back and read your questions more carefully. I think it would be reasonable to try to get some boards from three or four foot sections. I would cut them about an inch thick - mesquite doesn't shrink much but you may have some 'waviness' in a bandsaw cut to plane out.

Cut the log and then let it dry. The wood would take forever to dry in the log and well before that you would have borers tunneling in it. When you cut it and get it down to about 20% or less moisture the large borers won't go after it. Then when it's dry you decide how to deal with powderpost beetles. :D

OK, the gloat. In my post above I mentioned a pretty large mesquite we put on the mill. We milled it this morning and got some of the best mesquite I've seen. Just happened to be an A++++ tree. There are a number of boards that are between seven and eight feet long and 14-16 inches wide with no shake (cracks). None, nada. I am amazed. :):eek::)

[Scott Haddix]

I believe this qualifies for a picture request.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Scott, I will post some pictures. But who knows when. We got the mesquite stuck this morning late. Then this afternoon milled a smallish hackberry which now currently resides on top of the mesquite. Also got a silver maple done but it was pretty much a dud.

Last year we got a 'full-grown' pecan done that I was also asked for some pics from. It was close to six feet across the butt. Some of the best looking pecan I've ever seen. Among other things the trunk yielded 33 boards each being a full twenty inches wide. As soon as it gets 'unstuck' and some planed down I'll try to get some pics. I'll try to do a gallery of sorts. The container we stuck the mesquite and hackberry in now has eight different species...maybe I can make an album.

'Scuse me for hijacking the thread, Dave. :o

[Dave MacArthur]

No problem, I learned what I needed and now I'm still enjoying reading it--bonus! My cousin has a woodmizer sawmill in MI, and a large kiln--some great wood stacked up there. Interesting stuff. I don't know anything about how to do it or what is "worth the time"--we did a large walnut log together, clearly beneficial, but this idea of "urban forestry" is interesting to me.

On the way home from work, I pass an entire section of dead grapefruit and orange trees, standing drying in Phoenix sun. The water to the grove was turned off a few years ago. I wonder every day if it would be worth chopping one and lumbering it--I doubt the owner would mind one gnarly tree left to rot in a section, if I asked him nicely. It looks like the trees are just drying nicely there, in Phoenix it might be hot enough (115 summer w/ no humidity) to defeat insects? Thousands and thousands of trees sitting there for years, going to waste... signs on the property now for a new commercial center strip mall coming. Any thoughts on this?

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Dave, I checked on wood from citrus trees and found next to nothing. What little was that the wood has a tendency to warp and check when drying and is pretty bland with no figure to speak of. I like to use a variety of stuff so am interested in just about any wood, which causes me grief when I have little bits of this and that pile up.
I did learn one thing. I found a couple references to lime wood. OK, lime’s a citrus….soooo-- Well, turns out it’s a European (British) term for what we know as basswood, which is wood from the linden or plane tree. For what that’s worth. :)
As far as the mesquite goes: If you decide to cut and mill it if you can get your hands on a metal detector by all means use it. If it’s a yard tree there’s a good chance it has metal in it. One of the species I mentioned in the post above is a walnut. It came off a lot here in town. I wasn’t around when it was cut but my friend showed me showed me about 10-12 nails out of it and ruined a blade on a cable grown into the wood. He doesn’t know why the detector didn’t pick it up.
Mesquite is strange stuff as relates to insects. Standing trees, either live or dead, will have some borer activity but usually minimal. But cut a live tree and the borers will hitchhike to it from miles away. After it’s cut and once the wood dries to some extent the large borers won’t tackle it. But powderpost beetles are another ‘can of worms’. You can kiln dry the wood and kill what’s there. Take it out of the kiln and let it acclimate and the little ------ will be back. (Pardon me, - my favorite wood rant. :mad: Lots of people think as long as it’s been kiln dried it’s bulletproof. And by “it” I mean any wood powderpost can get in- not only mesquite but some cases oak, ash, etc. Ain’t so.) We store and air dry wood in shipping containers and I don’t know what the temps are inside them in our Texas summers but I guarantee it’s over 115 and it won’t kill the insect larvae. It takes several hours at 150 or so; wood’s a great insulator. Also be aware I’m talking about my mesquite, which is honey mesquite. Yours is probably black mesquite which I’m guessing is close enough to mine to have pretty much the same properties…and problems.
As far as the citrus relates to insects: Don’t have a clue. Different woods – different properties. And since citrus is not native it may not be ‘palatable’ to native insects. Depends on the species. Pecan is native and very prevalent here. I see a few large borers in some of the wood but have never seen powderpost in pecan. The powderpost and borers are mainly going after starches and other carbohydrates in the mesquite sapwood. I haven’t tried it but had a friend who had a wood flooring operation who said he would sometimes cut a chunk of mesquite sapwood and chew it because of the sweet taste. Rather than go on and on (and especially with mesquite I can do that) if you have any specifics let me know. I may not know…….but I can sure sound like I do. :D

[William Addison]

Several people have mentioned Mesquite as being very expensive and I imagine it is in a lot of places but I pay 4-7 dollars a b.f. when I pick it up at the mill around here. I think the South Texas coastal Mesquite is much nicer than Mesquite from further north because it is more red than brown after it has been exposed to the sun, but of course it does come down to personal preference.

[Barry Richardson]

I slice up mesquite any time I get the chance. It's a very forgiving wood as far as drying goes cause its so stable. I usually cut 3-4 ft chunks or wharever size can be handled by one person, paint the ends, and slice them 2" thick on my bandsaw. Then I just throw them in the shed. I find that carefully stickering and stacking didn't make much difference on short thick pieces like this. After one Arizona summer the wood will be ready to use. As far as Orange and Grapefruit, if it's standing dead, don't waste your time. When the trees start to die they quickly get blue stain in the wood that looks like crap. If you can harvest it live, then slice and dry it, thats a different story, It's an excellent, fine grained, hard wood, a bit plain in appearance though. Orange is a great accent wood for small projects, as an example, here is an endgrain cutting board with orangewood and cherry.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Might as well keep this going. Dave, you've created a monster. :D :D

Barry, you abviously have Arizona mesquite. Which I think is probably black mesquite. I don't know if you have anything to compare it to but how prone is it to cracking (wind shake)? Some of the stuff we mill just falls apart when you take it off the mill. That's why I was in awe of the wide clear stuff we cut yesterday.

William, you said that you prefer the south TX mesquite because it's redder. I used to say that too. When I was starting this woodworking madness the first mesquite I got was already milled and from from a mesquite place in Bulverde, just north of San Antonio. And it was really red. Then I had some local stuff milled and then got a mill and compared to the Bulverde stuff it was lighter and more brown. So I went around myself telling people the south TX stuff was redder. Then we had a chance to get a load of about twenty logs from Beeville, about 100 miles south of San Antonio. About three quarters of the way through milling it the guy I work with on this looked at me and said, "You're wrong about the color." I couldn't argue with him. The Beeville stuff (which didn't come from the same site) was about the same color as the local stuff or if anything lighter. Probably a regional thing. And as far as price we get from $5 up a foot depending on quality. My partner will probably put that stuff from yesterday in a bank vault, though. :D

One thing I will say about the north TX vs south TX mesquite is the north TX stuff is harder to get boards of any length from but has more figure than south TX stuff. Stands to reason: mesquite is a tropical tree of which some species have adapted to a temperate climate. So the farther you get from it's 'comfort zone' - in this case north - the more gnarled and stunted it will be. It is found up into Kansas but from what I can tell it's not much worth having anwhere north of the Red River.

As you can tell, mesquite people can get a little rabid on the subject. :)

[William Addison]

Beeville is on the edge of the red stuff from what I've seen but You are correct in that I should have said usually has more red. Actually along the coast big boards are very hard to come by because we have so much wind the wood is usually full of shakes and cracks. I am going to have to stand by what I said about red and coastal Mesquite however.

When first milled, coastal stuff is very tan but after finishing and being allowed to get a suntan it is usually very red. I'll try to post some photos later.