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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fallen Woodwork View Post
    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?
    FW

    The symbiotic relationship sums it up very well: Better than my explanation. If I can find a pic of that log I will post it here. It is not the biggest log I ever milled but it was the largest diameter at the time. I since milled up a larger diameter Grey Gum.

    The heart in a hardwood log, even if it is still present, will break up in quite a short period of time. It is usually defective in terms of woodworking anyway, but this is the complete opposite of softwoods where the heart is used successfully. It does mean that the recovery (useable timber) from a hardwood log is less than that from an equivalent sized softwood log. Also be aware that the terms hard and soft are slightly misleading and really we should talk of pored and non pored woods (but nobody does). Some "hardwoods" are soft and some "softwoods" are hard. Balsa is the commonly quoted example of this as technically it is a pored wood thus making it a "hardwood."

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

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  3. #32
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    Thanks Paul. Great information there.
    Thats interesting about pored and and non pored woods. I will have to look up some micro images of these two types of timber.

    A few pics of those logs would be awesome.

  4. #33
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    Default Pictures as requested

    Well you asked for pix: This was a little while ago now. I was younger

    This log was close to the maximum that would fit beneath the saw.


    Large Ironbark 20210824_18133682 (Medium).jpg

    The rule of thumb is to cut down one third and then rotate the log 90°. This is after the first rotation.


    Large Ironbark 20210824_18183694 (Medium).jpg
    This series of pix shows another section from the same tree, which had been standing dead in the paddock for ten years. It was still green in the centre. The black dot is part of the heart (it extended wider than the termite nest) which is in fact termite residue. The top pic has the swing blade in the horizontal position, the middle pic has the blade in the vertical position and the last pic shows the 8 x 2 boards we were cutting for the customers stockyard specifically to round up his bulls. He was there lifting the freshly cut boards from the mill, which was a great help. He was a good bloke and I enjoyed working for and with him.

    More large Ironbark20210824_18224874 (Medium).jpg

    Sorry about the large white gaps. These are real photos I had to scan and the scan included the white space around a 6" x 4".

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  5. #34
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    Smile

    On the subject of pored and non-pored timber, a man by the name of Morris Lake has produced two books in conjunction with the CSIRO: "Australian Forest Woods" and "Australian Rainforest Woods." Both are nicely produced publications and at the back of both books are a number of end grain pix at x15 magnification and x90 magnification.

    I have taken two examples to show how the pored and non-pored timbers look under the microscope or a good jeweller's loupe.

    Pored (Casuarina
    )P1070747.jpg

    And non-pored (Cypress pine)

    P1070748.jpg

    The left hand pics are at x15 and the right hand at x90.

    No affiliation with the author or the CSIRO, but very happy to recommend the books (and to accept any kickbacks they care to offer )

    This is also a description from the ABC's Dr. Karl.

    The hard word on hardwood › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science)

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  6. #35
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    Thanks for the great photos and no need to apologise at all.
    At first I thought it was Slash from Guns N Roses at the mill until I realised what I thought was hair was actually a hat neck flap hahaha

    Wow! that is some log there. And to think it has been standing dead for all that time. I dont think dead trees would last more than a few seasons here.
    What a great mill - horizontal + vertical cuts + capacity
    Is the rule of 1/3 for milling boards only? I'm waiting for a miller to visit and unsure of I want to try to make a table or turn large bowls


    Thanks too for the pored vs non-pored end grain pics and links. That is very useful for a visual learner. I am a fan of Dr Karls science explanations that often help paint a picture in my mind.

  7. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bushmiller View Post
    ....No affiliation with the author or the CSIRO, but very happy to recommend the books (and to accept any kickbacks they care to offer )...
    Well, Paul, I'll do my "grumpy old man" impersonation & be a dissenting voice. While I say hats-off to Morris Lake for the effort he must have put in, the book was a bit of a disappointment to me. He could have done with a good photo editor (and a good text editor, the text is full of grammatical errors and some technical errors such as describing fruits as "drupe-shaped". A drupe is a particular type of fruit with a hard-coated seed with a fleshy covering & they come in many shapes!). My main gripe is that the vast majority of the pictures which are supposed to help you identify the trees are next to useless, too small, too blurry and do not clearly show the features you need to see. The pictures of the trees themselves are also of very limited value - in many cases you can't be sure which of the trees in the pic is actually the one being described! The text on the woods' working properties in many cases appear to be almost word-for word out of Bootle, so if you already have that book, you don't gain much. Finally, the end-grain pics in the back are not much use to your average reader. They would be a good resource for someone who is in the business of accurate wood id & has access to gear that can make the necessary fine slices for higher mag perusal, but for your average Joe, even if they had the sections & a good microscope to study them with they would struggle to differentiate much - they are Greek to me, & I spent a working lifetime looking at (animal) tissues with microscopes. I reckon it would take me quite a while & some good coaching to be even partially confident at identifying much. It would make far more sense to me to print that part as an atlast for specialist users, and use the space for some decent-sized & maybe labelled pics for the rest of us punters.

    As a contrast, compare Lake's book with the earlier multi-authored "Forest Trees of Australia" published in the early 80s. It has few colour pics, but the B&W pics of trees & parts & the good line-drawings of seedlings & other significant features are mostly very clear & actually helpful...

    As I said, just one opinion from a GOM...

    Cheers,
    IW

  8. #37
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    Hmmmm. Ian I have all those books you mentioned. Perhaps I am reading them in conjunction with each other. Each of these books in isolation has deficiencies. The lack of colour in "Forest Trees of Australia, the complete absence of pix in Bootle's book" and so it goes on. It also depends on what you want to derive from the books. The final problem, to my mind, is inescapable and one that we have frequently mentioned. namely that timber even within it's own species and type is so very variable.

    Just this last weekend I went out to a timbered region in our area and found a spectacular Kurrajong tree in terms of form (most have been hacked to pieces to feed cattle in drought times), but this had a completely different leaf form from those with which I am familiar.

    Nothing is set in concrete in the world of trees plus hybrids are becoming increasingly common.

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  9. #38
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    Came across this whilst reading.
    Might help?



  10. #39
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    Thanks for that extract Pete

    I wonder if Brad (Forum member "Ironwood") knew about this. Probably not or he might have chosen a Forum name of "Camel Poison" instead.



    Interesting that it was also at one time called Leguminous Ironbark.

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  11. #40
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    We've been cutting up some Red Ironbark at the tree loppers yard.

    This was one log.
    It didn't seem all that much harder compared to what else we've been cutting, eg Tuart and Spotted Gum, but it was still quite green.
    I also seem to have found the sweet spot with band saw blade sharpening and it as a fresh blade I was using.
    ironbar3.jpg

    I've also milled Red Ironbark using a Chainsaw mill.
    This log was the first RI I milled that turned out to be harder than the others.
    I've always though if it was the first log I tried to mill with a CSM I would have given up.
    grain3.jpg

  12. #41
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    Here’s what we do with Ironbark (Grey).

    Regards

    Pete.





  13. #42
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    Pete

    I'm speechless. Well, not quite or I wouldn't be replying. That is fabulous. I like that it is incorporated with light walls or else the whole effect would have been overpowering. I once made some external doors (framed, ledged and braced) from Ironbark. Even thirty years ago I couldn't lift them!

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  14. #43
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    It sure is heavy. That benchtop was on the first floor of the house and needed to be craned in in three pieces. Then manhandled into position joined and finished. It was a bit of a mission.
    I didn’t enjoy the doors either. There were 13 of them. Bloody exhausting. Hard on the body and tooling too, especially the chain Mortiser.

    Pete.

  15. #44
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    Must have missed this thread. Looks definitely like Ironwood to me, same species as Cooktown Ironwood, except this is usually called NT Ironwood

    I have a fair bit from my last trip to the NT, all with hollow centres from termites, the termites up there will eat through anything, but are a different ferocious species with obviously better teeth.

    Just to get you drooling, the same species also grows around Winton Qld, but known there as Red Ebony. You might be able to appreciate why from the following photos of a freshly cut very old dead and dry burl I'm currently working on

    red ebony.jpg red ebony2.jpg

    Unfortunately the red does not last, within a few days it dulls, then turns a dark brown and ultimately an almost black colour

    red ebony3.jpg red ebony 4.jpg
    Neil
    ____________________________________________
    Every day presents an opportunity to learn something new

  16. #45
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    So many great photo's of the stuff we love.
    Thank you to all who posted.

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