Thread: Cross ? grained eucalypt

It splits easily (with an axe) along the rings

That type of split is very common among Eucalyptus and Corymbia. For those that don't know it's the really old method of making timber roof shingles. Often times you don't even have to have much penetration, nor even much pressure, of the axe as the shingle has a tendency to jump off the log.

The description sounds like what is called "rowed" grain, which is very common in some Eucalypts. E. tereticornis around here typically has that sort of pattern, which, added to its hardness & gummy nature makes it a pig of a wood to hand plane (or plane with a machine).

I've never come across an explanation of how a tree manages to instruct its cells to grow like that, but I presume it's come about as a result of natural selection for trees that survive high winds & twisting.
Cheers,

So now I've managed some images.Image-1.jpegImage-2.jpeg
These are the front and back of the same piece of wood. It is about 75mm thick.
I am not sure how many changes of grain direction are in between these two.
I exaggerated when I said thirty degrees, this looks more like twenty.
And I think I know why it burns slowly. The termite galleries (dark diagonal line in image), and the nest itself, allow water to accumulate inside the tree and soak into the wood. Even though the tree has been dead for years it is still damp.
Now that it is cut up and stacked under cover it should be good in a year or so.
Cheers
Ian

Lightning strike can twist the grain

Here is an example of a cross-grained eucalypt (a box) which shows a very old weathered log, but a good example of how such cross grain grows in alternating directions in some eucalypts. This results in an "interesting" figure making such woods very hard to split eg for firewood.
This pic was published in World of Wood (IWCS) some years ago.

Cross grain.jpg