Do you know anything about River oak ?

[JDarvall]

I had a quick google search and its called

Casuarina Cunninghamiana (thank god for copy and past) Grows along river banks. Fine needle like leaves apparently.

My neighbors second job involves falling trees on the weekend and he said that theres a few of these he's been asked to drop. He offered to cut one up for me with his portamill thing.

He gave me a sample of it, and I took it through the jointer quickly. At first it looked a bit like some parts of silky oak. Merky sort of colour

Whats it good for do you think ? ...I suspect its not worth much, else he wouldn't be offering it. But still curious.

Thanks.

[Pat]

Tripper, our mate Bootle says that Casuarine cunninghamiana = River Sheoak. of which he says " A medium to large hardwood . . . but seldom milled because of its value in bank erosion control. . . . Care needed in drying to avoid splitting. . . . Ornamental turnery, decorative woodware, fencing, roof shingles, excellent fuel . . .

So I think you better grab some!:)

[TTIT]

Tripper, our mate Bootle says that Casuarine cunninghamiana = River Sheoak. of which he says " A medium to large hardwood . . . but seldom milled because of its value in bank erosion control. . . . Care needed in drying to avoid splitting. . . . Ornamental turnery, decorative woodware, fencing, roof shingles, excellent fuel . . .

So I think you better grab some!:)Key word here is hard. Hard to work.Hard on tools. Hard to stop splitting. Got the picture???!!!:; Can look good though :shrug:

[DJ’s Timber]

Vern is right, it needs to be milled and sealed as soon as it's been cut down and stored somewhere cool

[Hardenfast]

My limited experience with it mirrors the above comments, Jake. I had several pieces given to me which were freshly milled from the Taree area many years ago. The boards were about 250mm wide by 35mm thick and about 2.5m long. Fantastic looking stuff with the flecky appearance similar to Silky Oak, and nice contrast between sapwood and heartwood.

They were very heavy - full of water - so I stacked them carefully in my timber racks and duly forgot about them for about 12 months. Didn't bother about sealing the ends as the racks were well protected and was happy to expect a little end checking.

However, when I did get around to pulling the pieces out they had all split up to at least a metre from each end. I can remember that the gaps were sometimes 25mm wide at the end and that in some boards there were several gaps across each end. Shame, only ended up getting a few usable pieces out of the lot.

I would have thought that maybe the logs need to season for a while before being milled, but I would defer to DJ's experience in these matters. I notice that there's always a lot of these trees around where I live which appear to be dead. Maybe that's the secret? In the US there's a niche market for "standing deadwood", where mini-millers go into an area and only remove trees which have died but are still upright. Must help in the seasoning process if you're lucky enough to have access to this commodity.

I also know these trees as Swamp Oak.

[JDarvall]

Thankyou kindly for the info.

I'll seal it and store it somewhere cool. .... maybe under the house on racks.

Ta.

Interesting about standing deadwood milling Hardenfast. Never heard of that. Something to talk about tomorrow during smoko.

[Tony Morton]

Hi Jake

Something I found about river oak I suspect it would work for other timbers as well. When you fall the tree leave it with head attatched for a few weeks till all the leaves have dried out it takes a lot of the moisture out of it, we used to leave about six weeks and it was dry enough for fire wood where as trees cut up on the day of falling were still dripping wet months later.

Cheers Tony

[Ramps]

AT
I find all sheoaks beautiful
We're blessed with a much friendlier species over here C.fraserii but even though the cunninghamiana is a PITA to dry if it's free it's worth sealing and storing in cool place (I've heard of under the house is particularly good). Even if you only get half of it back it's still cheap and very worth while. Beautiful timber

[JDarvall]

Thanks Ramps. Spose my only issue left, is how long to dry it for. I generally just let everything sit for a year and she'll be right . uno.

But every timbers different eh. Should probably buy one of those moisture meters.

[reeves]

yes i have a few chunks of it, quite bit grows round these parts near the rivers..its hard as, about 1100 on the density scale, harder than ironbark and you can use the sapwood which is like half the trunk. Really nice oakish grain, polishes well but cos if its hardness a bitch to work..harder than mulga. It doenst seem to split as much as the other casurinas, oh and did i mention its hard, like really hard....;-)

this stuff could take years to dry properly, i bought a plank at maleny woodshow for 30 bucks and they said it had been drying 7 years. A mate droppe doff some green chunks about a year back, drying slowly.

Like all casurinas the best best is to cut em to size as a soon as you can, grease the ends and store em in a very dry place..it will be easier to rough turn em green as well..

[Ramps]

AT
the stuff over here behaves likes "it's supposed to" about an inch a year for drying. Over one summer the stuff up to about 30mm dried nicely but the stuff at 50mm thick was still damp in the middle, that was in the carport.
Can't talk for cunninghamiana as I believe it's "tougher" but according to the books about 900kg/m3 compared to our 830kg/m3 so not that more dense (that is by the book that says Jarrah is only 830kg/m3 but I've have a piece that has dried in a house as a roof timber for about 80yrs and it still sunk like a rock. :oo:)

[junction box]

Casuarina has been used on turned chair rails, legs, arms etc., since our early colonial times. I remember seeing an antique Aussie casuarina chair on one of ABC collector type shows some years back and had a pretty hefty value put on it.
It's good to see the tradition is still alive and well right here ---> http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=50734

[MajorPanic]

The head of the mallet is River Oak which I ripped off from the local high school after they knocked down the tree. :U

http://www.majorpanic.com/images/woodwork/BB/PlaneMallet.jpg

It's good stuff to work with, hard as & hard wearing too!

[IanW]

Hi Jake - Junctionbox already pointed to my thread on the chairs I just made with River Oak spindles.
I haven't used it a lot, but all the bits (from maybe 4 or 5 different trees in total) were less dense than 'forest' sheoak (now called Allocasaurina torulosa) and a bit easier to dry, and much easier to work. Three of the trees were quite young, about 300mm diameter or a bit more, which may have some significance. Have used a lot of forest she-oak over the years (all from the Atherton Tableland where my folks live) - lovely stuff once you kick it into shape, nice mid-brown colour, and much denser than the river oak I've encountered, which has been very much paler and lighter, and turned very nicely - much better than sheoak, which is ok with sharp tools and a light touch.

As people have already said, it's a real b**g*r for splitting - those huge medullary rays are the culprit. But if you seal the ends well and go slowly for the first few months, you can get lots of nice bits intact. I've successfully dried pieces up to 75mm thick with no serious internal checking, though any knots or defects in a bit that size will probably bring you undone.
As I said in the other thread, "Forest Trees of Australia" reckons river oak was the wood bullockies preferred for their yokes, so it ought to hold up as chair legs.

I think the message is there's probably a lot of variability from place to place (as well as tree to tree) but I would certainly be giving it a go if the trees are free!

Cheers,

[JDarvall]

Lovely. Thankyou for your thoughts. Look forward to trying it myself.

River oak = splits easily.

I remember that. Ta.

[AlexS]

What veryone else said about it being hard and splitting. Also, tear out can be a problem. Nevertheless it does have a beautiful figure if you're prepared to do a lot of sharpening.
As a matter of interest, the first piece of furniture made in England from Australian timber was made from river oak cut near Lane Cove in Sydney. I bet the Poms didn't know what had hit them:oo:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=44242&highlight=casuarina

[Zed]

She-oak is fantastic! check out my blanket box (Link below). get as much of it as you can. Did u know that Colen Clenton uses it almost exclusively for his marking out tools ? seriously get some - its hard but beautiful.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?p=273964#post273964