[OP]
Member
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?
Contributor
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!
Last edited by William Fretwell; 06-23-2020 at 6:33 PM. Reason: Add
You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!
Contributor
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
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
[OP]
Member
William, what dimensions would you mill it?Originally Posted by William Fretwell
[OP]
Member
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.
Contributor
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.
[OP]
Member
What if I kiln dried and laminated the top? Would that dry up the rosin?
Contributor
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.
Contributor
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.
15929585815901565588130256550388.jpg
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.
Last edited by Rafael Herrera; 06-23-2020 at 10:17 PM.
Member
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.
Contributor
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.
Member
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/a...rowth-forests/
Contributor
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.
You can do a lot with very little! You can do a little more with a lot!
Contributor
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.
[OP]
Member
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?
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote