Jon, I read that you’re not getting too many questions in your area of interest. I posted in the same thread expressing my own passionate opinion, the most important duty of citizens in this nation, but deleted my post after reading forest girls post. I’m here for wood.
My real topic: I may be getting hold of a medium size California Fan Palm. I’ve wanted some palm for years and have seen tantilizing pictures of some wood from these palms, but I have no idea how to treat the wood. Any ideas or referrals?
I’d largely cut it up into 8/4 sized planks for drying with a chain saw and a hitachi resaw.
I’ll be away for a while if I don’t respond – I’m skiing for a week on Mt shasta and the Trinity Alps. Thanks
Replies
TMT, I can't be of much help on how to process palm wood. Living up here in the American Tundra (Detroit), it's not among the woods I've foraged and seasoned on my own.
The palms (monocots) are anatomically very different from the hardwood (dicot) angiosperms. Although they are angiosperms and therefore closer cousins of the harwoods than are the softwoods (gymnosperms)...in terms of their method of growth, they're even more unlike the hardwoods than are the more primitive softwoods (pines, etc.) There are a few palms, for example black palm and coco palm; AKA porcupinewood, that are used as accent woods, because of their striking color and/or texture. And some of the Southeast Asian palms are used for construction purposes and even some cabinet making applications...but they're exceptionally stringy woods and very difficult to shape. Also, some of them are extremely hard and dense.
Unlike either hardwoods or softwoods, the palms don't have an enclosing cambium layer between the bark and sapwood that produces woody tissue in the form of annual growth increments around the periphery of the log. Instead, their anatomy is made up of fiber bundles, something like the wound strands in a rope. Depending on the species, many palms have a very pithy (spongy) center, with the denser fiber bundled tissue surrounding it on the outside...Just the opposite of typical hardwoods or softwoods, where the softer sapwood surrounds the denser heartwood. With this in mind, the part of the log you'll most likely want to salvage will tend to be the outer part that you would ordinarily slab off when milling a typical hardwood.
As for drying time, or the risk of checks and distortion in the drying process, I have absolutely no experience based tips to offer you. Just based on judgement though, given the fiberous nature of the wood and its convoluted anatomical structure...my guess is both checking and distortion could be big-time problems...So, coat the end grain thoroughly and make sure you have plenty of weight on the drying pile.
...And by the way, while it's drying, shop around for a cheap place to get your blades sharpened. You'll be needing it.
I agree. I look most volentarily at the wood posts. I also look for wood articles in magazines which are some of the articles I enjoy the most. I get really sick of the router/table reviews, portable planer articles and band saw questions.
It would seem that materials and technics sit one step down on the general interest level.
Philip
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