Thread: HARD AND HEAVY Hardwood - WHAT IS IT???

Originally Posted by Fallen Woodwork

...... Is it true it can kill cattle if the leaves are ingested? I've also heard that ironwood smoke can make people sick.....

Indeed the leaves are highly toxic to cattle & other livestock. In a former life I was a veterinary pathologist, & ended up teaching toxicology to veterinary students, so I'm pretty familiar with Erythrophleum chlorostachys as a veterinary problem. I can't comment on how hazardous it is to humans, but the fact that all parts of the plant are toxic to livestock (& it only takes a few leaves to kill a sheep, according to reasonably reliable sources), should be enough to make us wary. The toxin itself isn't well characterised, but I suspect that breathing in or ingesting the dust from turning & sanding would not do you a lot of good. I've only had occasional & brief exposures & so far & have not had any problems either, but if I were to start working with the stuff in earnest I would up my game on dust control.

A note to end on - HNT Gordon used to use a lot of Cooktown ironwood for his plane bodies when he started out, but doesn't seem to have used it these last 10 years or more. I wonder if he ran into some health problems, or was warned about the risks, or just decided Gidgee was a better choice?

Cheers,
Ian

My money is on Cooktown Ironwood.
I take it from your location of “top end” that you’re in the NT ?
I milled quite a lot of Cooktown Ironwood in FNQ in the ‘90s, I had a permit to mill fallen timber on a minesite, I mainly targeted the CI.
I have many examples from logs from within a 20 km radius, the colours range from orange, through red, to a chocolatey purple, and one log that was so dark it was almost black except for the characteristic cream coloured strands that run through it.
The end grain in the block on the scales looks very much like CI.

Here is a pic of the endgrain of the piece that I used for the front infill on the plane that I made for the "Plane Challenge"
DSC_1634.jpg

And a pic of the face grain.
DSC_1624.jpg

Originally Posted by IanW

A note to end on - HNT Gordon used to use a lot of Cooktown ironwood for his plane bodies when he started out, but doesn't seem to have used it these last 10 years or more. I wonder if he ran into some health problems, or was warned about the risks, or just decided Gidgee was a better choice?

Cheers,
Ian

I think Terry stopped using the Cooktown Ironwood because of supply issues.

Originally Posted by Fallen Woodwork

Grain: This wood can be brought to a good lustre without any polishes or products. The below going through 80-2000 grit only

I have found that you can burnish CI to a high gloss without using any finish.
Turn a piece to a cylinder on the lathe, sand it to 600 grit, then use a piece of shiny metal, such as the flat on your skew chisel, to burnish the timber while its spinning on the lathe.

Originally Posted by Ironwood

My money is on Cooktown Ironwood.
I take it from your location of “top end” that you’re in the NT ?
I milled quite a lot of Cooktown Ironwood in FNQ in the ‘90s, I had a permit to mill fallen timber on a minesite, I mainly targeted the CI.
I have many examples from logs from within a 20 km radius, the colours range from orange, through red, to a chocolatey purple, and one log that was so dark it was almost black except for the characteristic cream coloured strands that run through it.
The end grain in the block on the scales looks very much like CI.

Thanks for the posts Brad. Much appreciated.
Im right on the WA/NT border. Fascinating to hear about the range of colours - 'chocolatey purple' wow!
Did you ever come across ironwood that had suffered termite damage?
The stump below had a 2" hollow right down the entire trunck - I suspect it was sick after an extraordinarily hot fire came through a few years back.

I was going through my phone images and found these pics of my mate cutting up that 9 year+ log on his block.
Its longer than I remember - Ive been staring at smaller pieces for the past 6 months




There is sandpaper fig, neem tree , bauhinia and something else in this cluster

Originally Posted by Fallen Woodwork

Did you ever come across ironwood that had suffered termite damage?

The stump below had a 2" hollow right down the entire trunck - I suspect it was sick after an extraordinarily hot fire came through a few years back.

Yeah, quite a few trees that I saw had termites in them. I think they found it hard going, because they never went too far in.

Where I was, it was rare to find a good sized tree without a pipe up the middle of the trunk, I did find a few though. The trees growing in the poorer soil, seemed to be the ones that had the pipes generally. Some were so bad that they were a waste of time milling them. Often the pipes had some termite nest in them too.

Thanks for sharing your experience Brad. Fascinating what a difference in soil quality can make. There was a big difference in soils with the two examples I have posted. One was low lying loamy soil and the other (although not evident in the pics) was elevated and on a rocky base.
Thanks for your pictures posted - they look more or less identical to the sample from my mates block.
I will make a block from the termite log and post a pic

Originally Posted by Fallen Woodwork

Thanks for sharing your experience Brad. Fascinating what a difference in soil quality can make. There was a big difference in soils with the two examples I have posted. One was low lying loamy soil and the other (although not evident in the pics) was elevated and on a rocky base.
Thanks for your pictures posted - they look more or less identical to the sample from my mates block.
I will make a block from the termite log and post a pic

All the CKI wood that I have handled has come from the FNQ coastal forests.

Originally Posted by Ironwood

Yeah, quite a few trees that I saw had termites in them. I think they found it hard going, because they never went too far in.

Where I was, it was rare to find a good sized tree without a pipe up the middle of the trunk, I did find a few though. The trees growing in the poorer soil, seemed to be the ones that had the pipes generally. Some were so bad that they were a waste of time milling them. Often the pipes had some termite nest in them too.

Many of the so-called resistant timbers have pipes in the mature trees. This is the heart, which in a hardwood tree is no good anyway. My understanding is that the host of insects, birds and other animals that use the pipe in fact contribute nutrient to the tree and in fact are an important part of the tree's growth.

The best Ironbark tree I ever milled had a pipe in the centre and we recovered twenty seven 8" x 2" boards from it. A truly remarkable log. Cooktown Ironwood, which has similar density to the likes of Ironbark, is also rated in the highest strength and durability classes.

Regards
Paul

Thanks Moby. I wonder if the coastal forests there have better soils than here. I dont recall seeing it last time I went further north but I will keep an eye out to see if it grows around the coast here. Wont find much that is considered forest here but plenty of savannah.

Thats fascinating thanks Paul. I can well believe that animal life has a symbiotic relationship with trees. So pipes are not such a bad thing... thats great to know
That must have been some tree to produce those boards!
Quick question that anyone is welcome to answer - is the heartwood no good because it is weak and prone to splitting/delaminating?

I had a session with the bandsaw today - cut up a 30kg branch into smaller manageable pieces
Discarded 1/3 of this chunck. The pipe extended further into the centre on the other side




Plenty of these guys in the cambium layer:
Big buggers - around 8-9mm in diameter when crawling out of the holes


Made another 100mm block - roughly sanded on the disc sander
This timber probably has a bit more to dry out


Quickly polished up this side down to 400 grit then some 000 steel wool and abrasive paste

I have never seen grubs in CI, that’s a first for me.