Well, since wood seems to be the subject du jour, I thought I’d share my expeince with this wood for the first time. It’s cheap, has a nice open grain, works very well and was so pleased with it that after one small project, I ordered a bunch more to make a table that I just started. Problem is: THIS IS THE DAMNED DUSTIEST WOOD I’VE EVER SEEN !!!
In just a couple days I’ve grown to hate the stuff. The dust is extraodinarily fine and stays suspended in the air forever despite my hi volume filtration.
Are there any other woods that are particularly dusty like this one? I’ve never encounted anything like it.
Replies
I believe you, having cut some elm of late. I believe the closest for comparison has to be MDF. Kind of like setting off a talcum powder bomb in the shop. Haven't encountered comparable dust, though some have given off a lingering odor. I didn't particularly care for the scent of cut cocobolo.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
Warning, Elm alert!
Elm has been judged the juvinle deliquent of woods.
Known to attack innocent woodworkers in their sleep causing near fatal infections..
capable of turning to decay when someone spits on the sidewalk in town.. prone to warp twist and in general dance around like a hootcie-cootchie dancer on drugs.
Sure it looks pretty but like a prostitute in a new dress not very reliable
Be warned..
Nothing wrong with the stability of this stuff -- a hellofa lot better than maple and many others. I veneered some at 3/32" and it stayed as flat as can be. In fact, stability was one of the things that attracted me. You must be talking about a different type. Or are you just being a smart-####?
No!
Jon Arno will confirm the unstability of elm.. I may have been kidding about it attacking in your sleep, but not about it's stability..
Face it,, some guys can marry a prostitute who turns out to be a wonderful wife and mother but I dare say most can't.. The fact that you've had good luck with it says more about your ability than the nature of the wood itself..
I've got 8 planks of the stuff & have had for 2 months and it shows no sign of instability. Maybe I just got 8 lucky ones. In any case, I won't be buying more because of the hideous dust it makes. Worse than Padauk but for the color.
Frenchy had me thinking I'm wasting my time with a big elm project. What he says doesn't jibe with what I'm observing so I did some checking.
There are four indiginous species of elm in the US, common names Rock elm, American Elm, Slippery elm and Cedar Elm. Rock elm is the unstable one because it has interlocking grain. The other three elms do not. Rock elm also has no decay resistence, while the others are rated as moderate. Source: US Navy manual on wood for shipbuilding.
Frenchy, before you go telling people that they've got bad wood, you might want to make sure you know what you're talking about.
Boatman,
My source is somewhat differant than yours..
I've lived where Elm is practically the only tree (or was before dutch elm) I've experianced the fun of watching Elms decay. Since I was a child (over five decades ago) I've listened to experianced wood workers curse Elm.
In addition the Encyclopedia of wood lists six not four species.
American elm, ( Ulmus americana) Slippery Elm (U. rubra) Rock Elm (U. thomasii ) Winged Elm (U.alata) Cedar Elm (U. crassiflia) and September Elm (U. sertina) American elm is also known as white elm water elm and gray elm; slipperyelm as red elm and rock elm as cork elm or hickory elm winged elm as wahoo cedar elm as red elm or basket elm and september elm as red elm The same book gives elm the lowest decay rating slightly or nonresistant (3-17) right there with poplars, sweetgum,willows, and others..
another expert I used is Jon Arno on page 52 the best of Fine Wood Working's book Wood . "Elm is hard with a coarse, interlocking grain....."
Now some of my comments are very tongue in cheek, I doubt too many people are fooled by Elms who attack in a woodworkers sleep.. but decay prone is a fact and warping is definately a problem..
Besides As Jon says,, "When its cut the wood exhibits a distinctive barn odor."(page 51)
I've still got some issues with your sources. I agree that it does small like horse dung, which is really not bad. Many woment seem to love it, or why else do they fall in love with horses?
My understanding of interlocking grain is grain running in opposing directions at the same time, a la luan or afromosia being the two worst examples I know. My red elm definitely does not have interlocking grain -- it planes beautifully.
As to rot, I have no doubt but that this stuff shouldn't be used on boats or patio furniture, but rot isn't the issue here. Stability is.
I've resawn a bunch of this stuff into 3/16" x 5" wide, right through knot areas and high figure. My wood has been resigding in my air conditioned shop for over a month. I then put the some test pieces outside here in Florida to see what would happen. AS you know, no figured wood will withstand this test and remain completely flat. Of the three thin planks I put outside, the maximum warpage was about 1/4" twist. I though that was pretty good since few woods would withstand this test very well. Moreover,all but one of the 8 the planks that were shipped to me from Wisconsin over a month ago were and remain perfectly flat. I sure wish I could get maple that flat without paying a premium price. The one warped plank has a huge knot "wave" at one end. I can tell by the radius of the rings that my planks were cut from a very large tree - at least 3' diameter. It was air dried (sticker marks are present) and there is a date on one 12-09-99 indicating that the wood was dried properly. Price,$2.92 bd. ft.
Therefore, I'd have to disagree that red elm is inherently unstable; what I have seen so far actually shows superior stability compared to many other furniture grade woods.
Reputations and reality aren't always the same thing. I'm building a large trestle table, so if it turns out I'm wrong, Ill let you know since instability will show up real fast in this piece.
Boatman, I'm forced to agree with Frenchy (if that isn't enough to make you wanta puke...but anyway)...The elms (all of them) are inherently unstable. Their shrinkage stats and T/R ratios suggest they would be moderately stable but, in practice, they are not. Virtually all species in this genus (Ulmus and also Celtis; hackberry, which is in the elm family, Ulmaceae) produce interlocked grain...which sets up directional shrinkage differentials (stresses) in the wood. If you're having good luck with the stability of your red elm planks, wait until you experience some serious changes in humidity...although, when left in heavy thicknesses, the elms behave better than when milled thin...but simply because the greater thickness allows the stresses to counter balance each other better.
Although the elms also have very poor decay resistance, they have a long standing tradition in boat building. This is because they are extremely resistant to fracture (cross grain failure) and splitting. They were actually a strategic military commodity in the days of wooden warships, because ribbing made of elm would withstand abuse from cannon fire so well.
As for the fine sawdust, in my experience it has two powerful drawbacks. First, the fine splinters seem to be sharper than with other woods. Ever when too small to penetrate very deeply, they still seem to irritate the skin and the respiratory passages.Secondly, the elms have a foul, urine-like odor. In fact, slippery elm (red elm) has the legitimate common name (both here in the upper Midwest and in Canada) of P_I_S_S elm among loggers and sawyers.
The elms have very attractive figure, but they aren't the most pleasant of woods to work with.
Edited 7/14/2003 3:53:17 PM ET by Jon Arno
Edited 7/14/2003 3:53:48 PM ET by Jon Arno
This isn't a rhetorical dialogue for me as I have a lot of time tied up in an elm project, and what Frenchy siad had me in a dither.
As justabout everyone knows, Florida is famous for humidity. The wood has been stored (previously) outdoors but covered. After I got it, it's been in my air conditioned shop for about 6 weeks and the stuff remains absolutely flat, as I said before.
I sliced a sample 1/8 x 5 and put it outside where it's been for three days undercover. Wood that thin reaches saturation fast. In the last 3 weeks we've had 17" of rain, so ther is as much water in the air as on the ground. We're starting to develop fins here where our feet used to be. The thin piece warped only to the degree that any other wood, would. This kind of humidity will take a dry board and curl it up like a plane shaving in a matter of days. I got maple in the loft that will curl up badly when I bring it inside.
Jon, despite everyone saying otherwise, the stuff I got is just fine. I can't explain why. Maybe I just happened to get the worlds only pieces of stable elm. OR maybe THIS ISN'T ELM?
By the way, what is your definition of interlocked grain? Afromosia and Luan are two that I'm very familiar with and this doesn't have those characteristics. This looks like a cross between red oak and walnut, in both texture and color (tho color is highly variable) and the appearance of the grain is unidirectional. I've had little problem with hand plane or jointer on heavy figure, certaihly easier that maple with much less tear out. Thanks for your input.
A moment ago I just had some thoughts about shrinkage/expansion. Here in Florida I don't have nearly the problems that most of you report in northern climes In fact, I can't ever recall making ####piece that had stability damage. I can use wood in ways that one could not possibly do, say, in Wisconsin. I don't think that air conditioning has nearly as much effect as forced air heating that lowers humidity to extremes of an already dry atmoshere. Humidity is relative to temperature, so even in A/C its more humid than ambient in the northern winter. Bottom line may be that climate (natural and man made) plays a big role in whether a wood is judged stable or not. 100% humidity in Wisconsin in April is not the same as 100% humidty in the Amazon basin. The amount of water vapor in the air could esily be three times as much in one place as the other.
>>"OR maybe THIS ISN'T ELM?"<<
Sure is sounding more and more like that might be the case. I'd be happy to ID it for you, if you want to send me a sample...Or if you have a 10X hand lens, I could probably talk you through the key features to look for on the end grain. Elm is quite easy to ID.
---
>>"By the way, what is your definition of interlocked grain?"<<
As a tree grows and adds new vascular wood tissue, the alignment of the cells is not perfectly vertical up the tree. In virtually all trees, the cells tend to grow in a gradual spiral around the circumference of the trunk. The survival value of this feature (and doubtless the reason it evolved) is that given this spiral orientation of the vascular cells, if one side of the tree is ever damaged, the tree is still able to grow branches in any direction (360 degrees around the tree) at some point along the trunk.
Many species maintain the same spiral direction throughout the life of the tree, while some species change the direction periodically. The cells may form in a right handed spiral for several years and then switch to a left handed spiral for awhile...and then back again. As far as I know, what causes this is still not understood, but genetics must play a role in that some species almost always produce this directionally switching wood tissue (interlocked grain), while others do not.
Edited 7/14/2003 3:55:39 PM ET by Jon Arno
Edited 7/14/2003 4:00:51 PM ET by Jon Arno
This discussion has caused me to really dig into this. As I mentioned, I know Luan and Afromosia as interlocking grains, although with the later you have to look closely. It's much like a herringbone pattern.
One of the things i noticed about this Elm is that it has that prismatic effect, like those advertising signs that display something diffferent when you change the angle of viewing. All woods do this with irregular grain such as burls, curls, quilts and so on. Afromosia and this Elm does it all the time. Some walnut too, I think. Even the straight grain changes color based on your perspective. So, I took a magnifiying glass to it and then could actually see the cross linking. The interlocked cells are actually very tiny, but if you run your hand over a smoothed board you can really feel it. Does that fit your discription of the visual characteristics?
It seems to me that the interlocking is so fine (at least in these boards) that it has no ill effect in working. Afromosia is exactly the same, though it has a slightly larger cell pattern, it will machine plane fine if you take light passes. Luan is so coarsely interlockd that it seems to unstable anywhere (I've made furniture of the stuff, since discarded).
BTW, Jon, has there been anything researched about how different woods behave in different environments? I've neer lived outside of Florida, so all I personally know is hot and humid or cool and humid. I've seen tons of very old English furniture in jamaica that is in perfect condition. So what is called unstable wood in northern climes isn't at all unstable in consistantly wet ones?
"The survival value of this feature (and doubtless the reason it evolved). . . ."
You don't believe in that evolution garbage do you?
Now Mark, I know you do-gooder Liberals have difficulty with the concept of self interest, but it does exist in the natural world.
C'mon, don't kid me, Jon. You know evolution is just another Liberal fraud.
Jon,
the good of the whole is far more powerful force then self interest..
As a nation we've educated our children when in other countries that was reserved for the wealthy.. because of it America became the powerhouse that it is.. self interest has merits but a community that puts the whole above the individual is a very powerful force..
Ee gad, don't we have a special political section here somewhere?
I'm sorry.. that shouldn't have been in this section.. I apologize for both Jon and myself..
You might want to check out issue #103 by Ken Textor describing elm as a much maligned and underappreciated wood. Seems a lot of people had bad experiences with all the street elms that were cut down and planked. I think you know the problems with stand-alone trees. And for what it's worth, elm was widely used in boat and ship building, as often as oak (which most species have terrible rot resistance). Therefore, I'm suggesting that elm is getting a bum rap here since I simply don't see all the problems everyone else is describing. They probably got free-standing trees of unknown variety. My supplier tells me that that his source harvest only forrest trees, and he is certain of the species. He hasn't led me wrong yet.
So, for those of you who have heard that red elm is whore in a cocktail dress, think again. It's cheap, workable, does not suffer from excessive tear out and is no worse than Maple for stability. My moisture meter tests do indicate that it takes on moisture more rapidly than most other woods, but that is overcome by sealing it well.
Well please let me correct a couple of points..
white oak is one of the most decay resistant woods we have.
while elm was used in ships of war, it was used where it could be easily replaced..or the ship itself was considered to be expendable.
as for your happiness with it, congradulations..
That is a real compliment to your wood working ability.. I hope the piece you are working on turns out to be everything you want it to be..
Well, you know how gummint work goes . . .
>>while elm was used in ships of war, it was used where it could be easily
replaced..or the ship itself was considered to be expendable. <<
Where on a ship or boat can anything be easily replaced? I agree with you, however, I would not use elm anywhere in boat construction, not even interior. My guess is that it was treated wherever it was used. Keep in mind that boat and ship builders cheated a lot on wood quality where it can't be seen, as in frames, keels, etc.
Boatman, inventories of elm were often carried on warships as part of the "stores", along with pine pitch, wrought iron, rope, canvas and other "gotta haves" for emergency repair (I suppose, mostly for ribbing splices and braces after a storm or battle...but I'm no nautical guru.) The curious thing is, elm was also often used for carvings by the sailors, such as the whatchamacallit female statues they hung on the front end of the ship...even though elm isn't a particularly friendly wood to use for that purpose (hard to carve and virtually no decay rsistance.) It probably got used in this way simply because it was available while at sea.
Jon,
figureheads? is that the word you were looking for?
Today's definition of easily replaced and yeaterday's are two differant stories.. I'd hate to put in the hours those old salts did and that was considered normal for the time.. Just reading about opening the hatches makes me weary..
Ever read about "wearin" a ship around? It the days of square sails and Iron men it was the normal course of action.. done at sea in high gales. Today it wouldn't be done. Or towing a ship into the wind? They'd get in their crew boats and row the ship into the little zephers of wind. think of a mouse pulling a pick-up and you have an idea of the work involved.
Frenchy, we're starting to shanghai Boatman's thread about Red Elm here...but I think you misunderstood my comment about "self interest" in the natural world. I meant it as a parallel to Survival of the Fittest and the Territorial Imperative. In other words, trees that can branch out in all directions to capture sunlight are more capable competitors and therefore more able to defend their turf and perpetuate their species. Very few bleeding heart, self sacrificing, eager-to-share, flaming Liberals (plant or animal) make it out there in the jungle...at least not long term.
...But the topic here is ELM, my friend...so, you should get back to slandering this noble species, while I concentrate on defending its virtues. :O)
Jon -- I've lived in Florida since 1958 and ain't wrung out my underwear yet -- just leave it on to help keep the mosquitos away, like the Seminoles do. Besides, if it weren't so humid here we wouldn't have Cuban mahogany growing, and you wouldn't be getting all those great oranges and veggies in the winter, either. So, leave our humidity alone, ya hear?
CUBAN mahogany??? Were the heck you get that name? Have they completely taken over everything down there? That there's true mahogany, swietenia americanus, USA, sp. mon amigo.
Jim, all I can say is; both you and Boatman BELONG in Florida. He doesn't wear underwear at all and you just squish around in it.
...I should offer a warning, though. You want to keep it either thoroughly saturated, or below a moisture content of 20%. These are the outer limits of fungi metabolism...Or you could just keep it below 32 degrees F, that also works.
Hey, now, rot is what holds everything together here. I don't have to go to the grocery to buy my mushrooms, just pick 'em off the eaves. Sure beats ice and exploding furnture, tho. Besides, they taught me in 'Nam that you wear underwear and things rot that you don't want to rot.
Aw well if we're talking about Elm, I'll have to stand by my position that elm is a lousy firewood, burns poorly yielding little heat and a lot of smoke. splits only with great difficulty, makes an unstable wood, smells, machines poorly , gives nasty splinters, and rots easily..
you may tell him that it's pretty..
Sometimes American elm smells spicy, kind of like cardimom, to me -- but usually it just smells like a$$. I also think that I can actually see it warping after I joint/plane it. If you can call what I do with American elm planing, usually it's just a tear out session. I move the outfeed bed on my jointer to lower than where I usually like it and prepare to be vibrated like a coin operated motel bed, knowing the whole time that the blades will need sharpened after an elm session. Where I live, nothing ever decays so I can't come with experience there, I could only paraphrase wood technolgy information that I have come across that lists poor decay resistence. The only other elm I have any experience with is Siberian elm and it's in the same league as the American version, except it has communist leanings.
Any who, I love elm despite it's problems, I think it has a refined look. I just use construction methods that take in to account its instability.
I can't comment on working American Elm of any species... but from what I've seen of European Elm, I can honestly say it's tame compared to some of what you're saying. OK sure, the grain is crazy, tear out in every direction... but as for the needle like saw dust or odour... none of that mess. I spent the better part of the christmas break hand planing a dozen 12"+ wide boards to get them flat enough to run through my thicknesser. As this was the first time I'd tried hand planing ANY board... I can honestly say the experience was educational. Forced me into learning about optimum sharpening and honing angles, skew cutting and using a block plane for the more roudy grained boards. That said, I'd build another project with it at the drop of a hat. As for it's stability, sure, I had some surprizes. Seeing a piece twist itself into a helix as I cut it on the table saw had me wondering if I was seeing things, but from what I've read, the sudden release of internal stresses can cause that to hapen with any type of wood. For my purposes, it's decay resistance isn't a factor. The piece I'm making is for indoor use only. As for it's stability, with the exception of the above, all my stock has been surprizingly stable. It was bought as KD quarter sawn unplaned boards coming from a sawmill on the North East coast of Scotland; all the humidity of Florida without the temperatures.
I freely admit that my experience is very limited, I'm still on the steeper side of the beginners learning curve, but given the choice, I'll take Elm over some of the Mahoganies any day.... Does that mean I need counceling for masochism..??
Sounds to me that what you are describing is reaction wood if it releases tension while cutting. That comes from a tree under stress (leaning). That is dangerous and impossible to use effectively and should be used for fire wood.
As I said earllier, I sliced off 1/8" veneers on the table saw with almost perfect results. Total best variance. 0.08. worst 0.025". Now, taht ws done thru a knot boss (the stressed wood in way of the knot). I havent had those kind of results ever withsoft maple, which I regard as a flakey wood that is more often reactionary than not. That could be because it's getting ever harder to get good wood as the commercial furniture factories gobble up all the good stuff and the retail market gets the crap.
I've heard otherwise, but my feeling is if the wood you get is badly twisted or bent, then reshaping it isn't going to help much except in the short term. I've seen articles in FWW where the author takes an horrendously warped board and straitens it. My reaction is that he's showing off and misleading everyone. Or he's nuts!!!
I refuse to accept really bad ones. I consider 3/4 inch over six feet unacceptable or not more than 1" over standard 8' board, and my supplier agrees, ergo he never sends me that junk. (That's my rule, not some published standard) I never try to use warped boards for larger parts, These get cut up for moldings and where they can be forced to maintain shape or used for small parts.
The flaw in the idea of flattening warped boards is that you ASSUME that the warpage process has reached its conclusion and will not continue to warp after you flatten it. One of my first experiences with building furniture proved this isn't always true. One way to deal with this is to always buy wood well in advance of using it so that you can observe it's behavior. Most pros do taht. But if you're buying freshly surfaced stock and using it right away, you may be in for a surprise. Hobbyists often don't do this and end up learning the hard way. I buy S2S and store it at least a month so I know what I've got (lots of bent, useless maple).
I should have asked Jon Arno what his definition of instability is. All woods are unstable to some degree, so we neeed to define our terms here. Unstable in what area and under what conditions? My definition of serious instability would be any wood that by conventional means one could not engineer a finished piece in such a way that it doesn't self destruct or develop unsightly flaws such as obvious shrinkage or breaking apart due to swelling or warpage. Mishandling and improper drying are yet other issues, but these are not inherent in a species, only a particular lot.
>>"I should have asked Jon Arno what his definition of instability is. All woods are unstable to some degree, so we need to define our terms here. Unstable in what area and under what conditions?"<<
I'm still here, boatman. The term "stability" refers to how much a wood tends to expand and contract with changes in humidity. Technically, it is a measure of the wood's gain or loss in volume as it takes on or gives up moisture...but woodworkers (including myself) often use the term in the broader sense to refer not only to a wood's gain or loss in volume, but also its tendency to warp or twist.
The more accurate term for warping and twisting is "distortion." Woods that tend to distort typically have a larger differential between their radial and tangetial shrinkage. This differential is usually referred to as the wood's T/R ratio...In other words, its average tangential shrinkage (green to ovendry) divided by its radial shrinkage. Woods with a T/R ratio greater than about 2:1 are typically more prone to distortion than those with lower ratios...although a high volumetric shrinkage also contributes, since the magnitude of overall shrinkage contributes to the stress.
The above definitions oversimplify the many factors that cause a wood to experience instability (and distortion) in the real world. The wood's anatomical structure, it's density and even its extractives (if they inhibit or retard absorption) influence how a wood will actually perform once it is put in use.
Personally, I think it is impractical to try to quantify some specific level of shrinkage (or even a T/R ratio) above which a wood becomes too "unstable" to be useful in cabinetmaking. Virtually all woods have at least some application for which they are well suited...and managing shrinkage and distortion is more a function of selecting stock with the right grain orientation for the intended purpose...AND the appropriate joinery techniques to compensate for any given wood's unique characteristics.
Mike's comment here about liking elm doesn't surprise me in the least. I'm also very fond of elm and think it has an extremely attractive figure. In fact, I often use it for small accent pieces and clock cases...But I don't use it where stability is critical; for example, in wide edge-glued panels, such as table tops. I have used it for floating panels in doors, but always giving special attention to stock selection and joinery methods.
...And finally, neither you or Mike live in areas that really challenge a wood's stability. Maritime climates tend to have high but relatively stable (narrow) humidity ranges. In fact, the problem in Florida is humidity levels remain so high that a wood's decay resistance can be an important factor, even for some interior projects. Boatman, I don't know how you can stand to live in Florida year round. In the summer, you must have to take your underwear off every hour or so and ring it out. Doesn't that attract a crowd? :O)
Edited 7/14/2003 11:29:28 PM ET by Jon Arno
Underwear???
Thought I would weigh in on this from SE MN. Around here, red elm is known chiefly as the BEST fire wood. I call it "gourmet" firewood and have been known to hand carry firewood chunks much further out of thick woods than I would any other species.
I think it's because since Dutch Elm disease killed most if not all elms around here, we've been able to evaluate the ability of elms to stand dead and "cure on the stump"...an ability that red elm excels in, even over the other elms. So...no need to season the wood once you find a tree that's been standing dead for a few years. Also no need to split to speed up seasoning, like with oak. Only reason you have to split is to get a small enough piece to fit in the stove. Even then, I commonly put a 8" - 10" diameter chunk 16" long by itself on coals for all night heat in January. Burns by itself, and in the morning is still a glowing ember with knots and grain still discernible. It will split with complaints on a hydraulic splitter, but without a splitter, it's still such good firewood that I will even work larger pieces down to chunks cross cutting with a chain saw out by the wood pile. Leave the really big chunks sit on end for a few years 'till they soften up enough to split by hand with a wedge.
I suspect that this same characteristic holds true for red elm when sawn into lumber and air-then kiln dried. Easier to DRY red elm to a point where a lot of the inherent instability becomes insignificant.
I say this because I also had an heirloom quality computer work station/hutch built of kiln-dried red elm by an Amish craftsman. He edge-joined all the structural and shelf panels, and drawer panels with glue joints on the door rails and even a bit of "fancy" grain in the door panels. Over a period of three years so far, this hutch has been exposed to pretty extensive humidity extremes with no bowing, splitting, or cupping.
By the way, his work shop was a real trip. Industrial strength planer, jointer, shaper, TS, & sander, all run off jack shafts, pulleys, and belts run by a single 60 hp stationary diesel engine out back.
I could have had this done for the same price ($1100) out of cherry, but DW preferred the color match between the red elm and red oak wainscoting in the room. Go figure...
Source of the wood is a small family run logging/kiln/milling operation in Lime Springs, Iowa. If you're interested in any more details about this place, let me know. They also have really nice figured maple, and wide, flaming, quarter sawn white oak boards there for the choosing. Also really nice cherry. All kiln dried.
There's a discussion of the various species of elm available as lumber in the current (August) issue of Woodshop News. So SOMEbody is OK with using it.
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