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269307 "bilcol" <bilcol@b...> 2019‑10‑10 Australian Pine Questions
I've had a couple good-sized Australian Pine trees (US name) come down in my
yard recently in S Florida.  I believe the trees are known as She-Oak in
Australia and that they are not related to pines at all.  The wood is more
dense and has a reddish color.  Does anyone have experience with using the
wood for projects?  Wondering about its workability, how it takes stains, if
there are special drying considerations or other considerations.

 

Thanks,

 

Bill B

 

 

 

Bill and Colette

bilcol@b... <mailto:bilcol@b...> 

www.bohlfamily.com <http://www.bohlfamily.com>
269308 Tony Blanks <dynnyrne@i...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
Hi Bill
> I've had a couple good-sized Australian Pine trees (US name) come down in my
> yard recently in S Florida.  I believe the trees are known as She-Oak in
> Australia and that they are not related to pines at all.

Correct.  The species you have in Florida is Casuarina equisetifolia, 
and there is some information about it here:

https://bie.ala.org.au/species/http://id.biodiversity.org.au/node/apni/2911837

It is a tropical and subtropical species, generally found on coastal sites.

> The wood is more
> dense and has a reddish color.  Does anyone have experience with using the
> wood for projects?  Wondering about its workability, how it takes stains, if
> there are special drying considerations or other considerations.

C. equisetifolia doesn't grow here in Tasmania where I live, though 
there are other Casuarina species here.  Examples of the Tasmanian 
species rarely grow large enough to do much with other than small boxes, 
turned pens and egg cups etc. Most of trees large enough to consider 
sawing have deeply fissured and folded trunks, so that it is difficult 
to get slabs or sawn pieces which do not have bark inclusions.  The 
pieces I have played with work well, though the timber is very hard and 
sharp edges are essential.  Depending on how the log has been sawn there 
will be medullary rays as in US oak.  In my experience boards are 
difficult to season without warping, cupping, twisting and splitting, 
but that may be because the source trees were slow-grown on hard sites, 
so probably had plenty of internal stresses to relieve!

Casuarina makes great firewood, though splitting the logs is hard work.  
It burns very hot, and local wisdom is that burning Casuarina regularly 
in a slow combustion heater will risk burning out the firebox.

If Derek Cohen is on the porch at the moment he will probably have more 
useful information: I have seen some quite long and wide Casuarina 
boards sourced from Western Australia where Derek lives.

Regards,

Tony B
Hobart, Tasmania
269309 Derek Cohen <derekcohen@i...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
Bill wrote:

https://i.postimg.cc/FztpKbJ2/111.jpg  

https://i.postimg.cc/HxqKZbk5/Entryfor-Australian-Wood-Review2009-html-
m5b4ef059.jpg">https://i.postimg.cc/HxqKZbk5/Entryfor-Australian-Wood-Review2009
-html-m5b4ef059.jpg

... to furniture (She-oak is my wife's favourite, and I built this sofa table
for her) ...

https://i.postimg.cc/LXr0j26X/30a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/yx4sxhFD/28a.jpg

... and boxes ...

https://i.postimg.cc/vBJTDydZ/A17.jpg

She-oak is very hard (more dense than Jarrah), a little less interlocked, but
also quite brittle - it can make great tool handles but watch the thin sections.
These Stanley 750 chisels received re-ground lands and She-Oak handles ...

https://i.postimg.cc/GmRRD8vT/Chiselset1.jpg

Just for the record, I have not heard She-oak referred to as Australian Pine. It
is on the other end of the hardness range.

Regards from Perth

Derek
269310 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
> On Oct 11, 2019, at 2:09 AM, Derek Cohen  wrote:
> 
> 
> Bill, if this is She-Oak, I have used it on numerous occasions. From building
tools ...


Derek

Great looking wood, great looking projects, and great looking work on your part.
The table is lovely

Ed Minch
269311 Tony Blanks <dynnyrne@i...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
Friends,

I sent this out earlier today, but it doesn't seem to have shown up on 
the porch.  Fortunately, and as I hoped, Derek came up with good info 
and some pix of some very nice work.  No doubt that the Western 
Australia species of Casuarina yield better timber than the species 
where I live.

Regards,

Tony B


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [OldTools] Australian Pine Questions
Date: 	Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:53:51 +1100
From: 	Tony Blanks 
To: 	oldtools 



Hi Bill
> I've had a couple good-sized Australian Pine trees (US name) come down 
> in my
> yard recently in S Florida. I believe the trees are known as She-Oak in
> Australia and that they are not related to pines at all.

Correct.  The species you have in Florida is Casuarina equisetifolia, 
and there is some information about it here:

https://bie.ala.org.au/species/http://id.biodiversity.org.au/node/apni/2911837

It is a tropical and subtropical species, generally found on coastal sites.

> The wood is more
> dense and has a reddish color. Does anyone have experience with using the
> wood for projects? Wondering about its workability, how it takes 
> stains, if
> there are special drying considerations or other considerations.

C. equisetifolia doesn't grow here in Tasmania where I live, though 
there are other Casuarina species here.  Examples of the Tasmanian 
species rarely grow large enough to do much with other than small boxes, 
turned pens and egg cups etc. Most of trees large enough to consider 
sawing have deeply fissured and folded trunks, so that it is difficult 
to get slabs or sawn pieces which do not have bark inclusions.  The 
pieces I have played with work well, though the timber is very hard and 
sharp edges are essential.  Depending on how the log has been sawn there 
will be medullary rays as in US oak.  In my experience boards are 
difficult to season without warping, cupping, twisting and splitting, 
but that may be because the source trees were slow-grown on hard sites, 
so probably had plenty of internal stresses to relieve!

Casuarina makes great firewood, though splitting the logs is hard work.  
It burns very hot, and local wisdom is that burning Casuarina regularly 
in a slow combustion heater will risk burning out the firebox.

If Derek Cohen is on the porch at the moment he will probably have more 
useful information: I have seen some quite long and wide Casuarina 
boards sourced from Western Australia where Derek lives.

Regards,

Tony B
Hobart, Tasmania
269312 "bilcol" <bilcol@b...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
Thanks Derick for the great info and project photos.  Clearly the wood can
be made into nice stuff.  The plane, table, box and tool handles are
excellent.  As mentioned in my reply to Tony, I have some nice sections of
tree but unfortunately don't have a way to process wood that big and heavy
into planks.  I saved the roughly 6 ft section I mentioned in my reply to
Tony to try to make a bench or shaving horse - mainly using an adze and
broad-axe.  But looks like I should try to season some for handles and
stuff.

 

Here is a link on the type of tree,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuarina_equisetifolia

 

And

 

http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/casuarina-species/

 

Bill

 <http://www.bohlfamily.com> www.bohlfamily.com

 

 

 

 

From: Derek Cohen [mailto:derekcohen@i...] 
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 2:09 AM
To: oldtools@s...; bilcol@b...
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Australian Pine Questions

 

Bill wrote:

https://i.postimg.cc/FztpKbJ2/111.jpg  

 

https://i.postimg.cc/HxqKZbk5/Entryfor-Australian-Wood-Review2009-html-m5b4e
f059.jpg

 

... to furniture (She-oak is my wife's favourite, and I built this sofa
table for her) ...

 

https://i.postimg.cc/LXr0j26X/30a.jpg

 

https://i.postimg.cc/yx4sxhFD/28a.jpg

 

... and boxes ...

 

https://i.postimg.cc/vBJTDydZ/A17.jpg

 

She-oak is very hard (more dense than Jarrah), a little less interlocked,
but also quite brittle - it can make great tool handles but watch the thin
sections. These Stanley 750 chisels received re-ground lands and She-Oak
handles ...

 

https://i.postimg.cc/GmRRD8vT/Chiselset1.jpg

 

Just for the record, I have not heard She-oak referred to as Australian
Pine. It is on the other end of the hardness range.

 

Regards from Perth

 

Derek
269313 "bilcol" <bilcol@b...> 2019‑10‑11 Re: Australian Pine Questions
Looks like my last email failed to post on the list.

-----Original Message-----
From: bilcol [mailto:bilcol@b...] 
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 11:04 AM
To: 'Tony Blanks' 
Subject: RE: [OldTools] Australian Pine Questions

Thanks for the info Tony.  I had one die a few months ago that was around 13" in
Dia.  I saved a clean 6 foot length and cut up much of the rest for firewood.
Another one that was leaning quite a bit toppled a couple days ago after a good
rain.  It is about 16" in dia near the bottom.  The first limb is about 10 foot
from the base and there are other good sections.  It seems like very nice, hard
wood.  I promised some of it to a neighbor for firewood.  I have a couple others
on our lot.  One is around 16" in dia and probably 80 or 90 feet tall.  My
neighbor in the back has a roughly 36" (90cm) dia Australian pine that has to be
100 ft tall (sorry for all the archaic units) just over the fence from us.  It
is a really nice tree but hope it does not topple our way during one of our
storms or hurricanes.

Here in Florida the trees are considered invasive since they grow very
vigorously and replace native vegetation.  Here is a link to info:
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/casuarina-species/


Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Blanks [mailto:dynnyrne@i...]
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 1:56 AM
To: bilcol 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Australian Pine Questions

G'day Bill,

I sent this note off to the oldtools server  a few hours ago, but it hasn't
shown up yet.  I don't know if the server is down at present, but I thought I'd
resend the message to you in the hope that you will get it a little sooner this
way.  I'm curious to know how large your trees are.  What length of trunk do you
expect to have to saw up?  The Tasmanian trees rarely have more than 3 or 4 feet
from the ground surface to the first major branch, at which point they develop a
low and widely spreading crown.  So not much potential for usable timber in the
form of planks or boards.

If you want to contact Derek Cohen in Perth his email address is


Regards,

Tony B
Hobart, Tasmania


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [OldTools] Australian Pine Questions
Date: 	Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:53:51 +1100
From: 	Tony Blanks 
To: 	oldtools 



Hi Bill
> I've had a couple good-sized Australian Pine trees (US name) come down 
> in my yard recently in S Florida. I believe the trees are known as 
> She-Oak in Australia and that they are not related to pines at all.

Correct.  The species you have in Florida is Casuarina equisetifolia, and there
is some information about it here:

https://bie.ala.org.au/species/http://id.biodiversity.org.au/node/apni/2911837

It is a tropical and subtropical species, generally found on coastal sites.

> The wood is more
> dense and has a reddish color. Does anyone have experience with using 
> the wood for projects? Wondering about its workability, how it takes 
> stains, if there are special drying considerations or other 
> considerations.

C. equisetifolia doesn't grow here in Tasmania where I live, though there are
other Casuarina species here.  Examples of the Tasmanian species rarely grow
large enough to do much with other than small boxes, turned pens and egg cups
etc. Most of trees large enough to consider sawing have deeply fissured and
folded trunks, so that it is difficult to get slabs or sawn pieces which do not
have bark inclusions.  The pieces I have played with work well, though the
timber is very hard and sharp edges are essential.  Depending on how the log has
been sawn there will be medullary rays as in US oak.  In my experience boards
are difficult to season without warping, cupping, twisting and splitting, but
that may be because the source trees were slow-grown on hard sites, so probably
had plenty of internal stresses to relieve!

Casuarina makes great firewood, though splitting the logs is hard work. It burns
very hot, and local wisdom is that burning Casuarina regularly in a slow
combustion heater will risk burning out the firebox.

If Derek Cohen is on the porch at the moment he will probably have more useful
information: I have seen some quite long and wide Casuarina boards sourced from
Western Australia where Derek lives.

Regards,

Tony B
Hobart, Tasmania

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