Thread: silky oak

I've never sawn silky oak but I wouldn't worry about the tree being fast growing.

Problem is that a 1 m circumferance isn't a very big log to saw and being a young tree it will be mostly sapwood.

I'd saw it if I had the chance, but realistically you may not recover a lot of wood.

Look at how many straight sections of log you can get out of the tree, and there may be interesting grain where the tree 1st splits.

If it's not going to cost you money and you have the gear to do it safely then give it a go, it's fun if nothing else.

Cheers

Ian

Hi Doug,

A 1980 Silky Oak tree will have a sap ring of almost ⅔ it's diameter so you will have a VERY small hartwood section.
Silky Oak sapwood is rather ordinary & grey in colour.

Hope this helps

ok, so how big a diameter does a silky oak log need before its gonna give you agood return? is 2/3 of the diameter pretty standard for sapwood?

completely off topic here but does anyone else have the same problem I'm having with Dougs avatar...it's strangely, well, hypnotic for some reason...


as for the silky oak, its not likely to have much usable timber in it being so young but give it a go anyway to see...there, back on topic!

Originally Posted by doug the slug

ok, so how big a diameter does a silky oak log need before its gonna give you agood return? is 2/3 of the diameter pretty standard for sapwood?

Hey Doug,

I had a chat to a mate who is a logger & he reckons..............

Bloody hell can he talk!!

I distilled all the useless stuff out & came up with... Size is not the determining factor in getting a decent hartwood return on a Silky Oak log. It is age He has cut miles of Oak in his day and 35-40 years minimum age is the go.

I distilled all the useless stuff out & came up with... Size is not the determining factor in getting a decent hartwood return on a Silky Oak log. It is age He has cut miles of Oak in his day and 35-40 years minimum age is the go.
<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Correct

All wood in a tree starts out as sapwood, and after a number of years it is changed to heartwood. So there is allways 5 / 10 / 15 (depends on species) growth rings of sapwood around the heartwood. Obviously if a tree is 20 years old and takes 15 years for heartwood to form, only the inner 5 rings will be heart. By the time it's 40 years old, there are 25 rings of heartwood, much better.
I haven't sawn any silky oak so I dont know what the actual time span is to form heartwood, but you get the idea.

Cheers

Ian

Nobody mentioned it also smells like crap!
Lots of people are alergic to the sap and dust fortunately not me.
I did what you you are planning about 12 years ago and it is worth it for what you might learn but usable timber out of it will be a minimum.

Ross

Originally Posted by MajorPanic

Silky Oak sapwood is rather ordinary & grey in colour.

& Lyctus borers & termites think it's the best desert ever!

From the SOs I've cut up, it seems pretty small - At a metre round, that's less than 300mm diameter, so there certainly won't be a lot of heart (There'll be about 30- 50mm diameter of useless stuff in the very centre, too). I certainly wouldn't contemplate getting something that small milled. But the only way to know for sure what's in it, is to take a saw and have a look. You might get some useful small leg blanks and such like, which you can easily freehand out of short sections.
Cheers,

ok thanks for all the input, looks like it isnt really viable for about 15 years. ANyone want to know where theres a silky oak tree you can have?