Shannon's Lumber Industry Update

The featured species of the month is Sweet Chestnut or European Chestnut. Similar of course to the blighted American Chestnut, but the Sweet variety flourishes in the UK and Europe and is often lauded for exterior cladding and for all manner of bushcraft work. The Chestnut is also a prime species for Coppice Forestry and I have a discussion about that silvicultural practice too.

Wood dust is a major health risk. Mostly as a cumulative effect (AKA sensitizer) that can sneak up on us and ruin your health after decades of working with wood. It is imperative we protect our lungs from even the most benign wood dust. So imagine how dangerous more toxic woods can be when in dust form that you get on your skin, in your eyes, or lungs. In today's episode I discuss the various cate...

This time I feature the Eastern Cottonwood and actually do some field reporting on it as I was recently out in the prairie states. I also go some time to work with a slab of Cottonwood to give some hands on experience with it.

Today I discuss Hemlock, our featured species. This is a wood with an identity crisis. Its long been a mainstay in construction lumber yet has more refined purposes as a high end clear, CVG siding and cladding product. Now it has an even brighter future as a thermally modified option for both interior and exterior uses.

Today I look at Monocots. The Bamboo and Palms that you may have seen showing up in flooring or plywood or even turning blanks. I also answer questions about branch wood, air dried wood, and the commercial vs local names of lumber.

This week I welcome Brandon Long, a structural engineer who plays as a woodworker at night. Brandon actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to structures and fatigue rates and all that stuff that I pretend to know about from watching "The Big Bang Theory".

A word of warning on this episode. New levels of nerdery on display here. If I had a white lab coat I would have worn it while recording. To sum up, woods with a higher T/R ratio will be harder to dry. But if you are like me and want to know why a higher T/R ratio is harder to dry, keep watching to dive into some organic chemistry and cellular structure. Also I feature Sapele this month. A much mo...

Lots of breaking news in the Lumber world and it was time I dust off my teleprompter and read everything that is on it. News from Notre Dame, the Paris Aquatic Center, Carbon Fiber and Mass Timber, Key Bridge Tragedy, and lots of great feedback from y'all. Plus I fit a few questions in about drying end grain cookies, lumber jobs, and Aniegre.

Today we talk about American Hornbeam, why some trees are brittle, fast growing trees for lumber, IBAMA strike and the CITES impact, and a possible source for urban lumber.

Let's talk about grassroots sustainability and how giving back as users of wood can start with education and grow into all kinds of programs for and individual or your local woodworking guild or even sawmill business.

Iroko or African Teak is the featured species this month. Found all across tropical Africa, the Iroko tree is enormous producing wide and long boards. It is growing in popularity as an alternative to Teak due to its similar color. But Iroko is a great species all on its own for exterior and interior projects.

Wood strength is a loaded statement. There are so many factors in HOW we use a board that determine which properties we look to for strength. This quickly gets complex so today I will boil it down to a density number and dispel the myth that rate of growth (width of rings) has anything to do with the density.

The featured species this month is Yellow Birch, Betula alleghensis. Its the most common Birch species and used for a wide variety of applications from plywood, to furniture and pulp products.

Let's take a deep dive into the Pinus genus and for that matter the Pinus sub-genera and try to understand how Pines can appear and work so differently. I discuss the evolution of the genus and how the industry has grown around these hugely varied properties and geographic distributions. Big thanks to all the great questions I got for this show from all of you.

African Wenge is an odd species and I use it to illustrate the exceptions to the rules about technical properties. Its a popular species due to its dark color and its use as an alternative to Ebony. Also covered in this episode: faux figure, burnishing, and property changes due to growing conditions.

Trying to catch up on my email inbox in this episode and talking about Pine, log buying, bugs eating old wood, plywood movement, and Yakisugi (shou sugi bahn).

The featured species this month is American Elm (Ulmus americana) but I discuss the different types of Elm as lumber and where they can be found. Plus some questions about cultivars, Spruce, and ripping for quartersawn stock.

I welcome Alex and Casey from the Completely Arbortrary podcast on this episode and talk trees and Jack Pines and have fun with a little Treevia! Check out arbortarypod.com and subscribe to their show to learn more than you ever wanted to know about trees.

The featured species this month is Cypress and I wax philosophical about why I like it so much and cover the technical details. Also in this episode: the White Oak shortage, Processing logs by hand, Amaranth?, and table top splitting due to movement.

Today I talk about why the board foot unit of measure needs to be put to rest and how ordering by grade and board foot will only lead to disappointment. In short, how to buy lumber to get what you actually want.

This is kind of a review of episode 5 but ideally a bit more applied look at what all those number mean when it comes to actually working with wood. In this episode I look at what I find are the most important numbers to consider and the tests that give us these numbers.

In this episode I feature Koa and talk a bit about Honey Locust, Cherry veneer colors, and then the historical price of Cherry vs Pine.

In this episode I welcome Matt Farrell from Burl and Grain in Hillsboro, OR. They are a sawmill and lumber yard like many of my previous guests. But Matt has extensive experience in drying lumber and has been a consultant to many firms to improve drying operations. So we talk quite a bit about preparing your space for drying and how important the air drying step is if you want to then kiln dry.

Questions covered in this show: why is Walnut so thirsty? Sticker Stain? Air dried vs Kiln dried for violin bow making. I cover the featured species: American Black Walnut, my favorite species to work. Finally I spend some time talking about a few stories about gene editing.

My guest this week is a retail lumber yard in Concord, GA called The Wood Yard. These guys are woodworkers themselves and totally get top notch customer service. I had a great conversation about their business and how they are embracing urban logging as well as good old fashioned community outreach. www.thewoodyard.com