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Thread: Natural Sculpture
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12th January 2022, 05:33 PM #1.
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Natural Sculpture
I've been milling logs with a big bandsaw at the tree loppers yard and come across all sorts of interesting pieces of wood.
I mainly turn logs into billets by basically cutting off the irregular outsides of logs to form a bark free regularly shaped "cant"
This is a red iron bark having its outsides removed (flitched)
ronbark2.jpg
This is part a flitch from the outside of a Spotted gum that has been infested with Longihorn beetle.
IMG_5337.jpg
From Longhorned Beetles (Family Cerambycidae) - Queensland Museum
This native beetle occurs in open forests and woodlands throughout Australia. It has been accidentally introduced to many overseas countries where it is a serious pest of eucalypt plantations. The white, legless larvae of this beetle bore under the bark of recently dead or sick eucalypts for several months. Mature larvae bore into sapwood and hardwood to pupate.
Here's a closer up image showing where eggs were laid by a beetle (red arrow).
Neest.jpg
The larvae start out small and grow so the tracks get bigger and spread out - how the heck do they initially know how to stay out of each others way.
Remember this is all happening under the bark and on top of sap wood.
As they get bigger they form bigger tracks and only then do they start to cross tracks - desperate for food I guess.
Just before they pupate they eat down into the wood - not many get to form a final pupae. I guess they get eaten or die or whatever.
Here's another one showing another egg laying spot.
IMG_5340.jpg
Back in 2014 I was milling a newly felled Spotted Gum for a nature playground I managed to cut the head off an adult beetle just as it was starting to emerge from the tree.
This is a composite image of the same headless beetle emerging over a period of a couple of minutes
Longihorn.jpg
Still working out what Im going to do with flitch - hang it up in the garden I suppose.
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12th January 2022 05:33 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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12th January 2022, 09:01 PM #2
to me that died piece is just longing to be table legs, absolutely beautiful.
I would love to grow my own food, but I can not find bacon seeds
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10th February 2022, 08:41 PM #3
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10th February 2022, 09:35 PM #4.
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Oh dear - I hate it when that happens.
Jeff the Tree lopper (he's actually a tree surgeon) where I mill the timber is very conservation minded. He's done courses at Tafe and Uni studying botany and conservation and really seems to know his stuff. When his team is asked to completely clear sites of all trees he collects any hollow logs and branches and turns them into nesting logs and donates them to conservation societies.
Much to his disgust he once also managed to behead a big monitor lizard hiding in a hollow log and destroyed several occupied nesting sites while removing trees. So he then went out a bought a very expensive FLIR (infrared camera) and checks out all the trees for potential occupants. He's not always successful but at least he tries.
He's also the sort of tree lopper that simply will not take down a tree if he thinks there is no go reason to do this no matter what the prospective client thinks. "Madam Im sorry but I personally cannot justify removing this tree, there are plenty of others that will do it I'm sure"
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