This may or may not be a precursor to a pretty sweet wood gloat.
The latest demo job we have taken on was in a church dating from 1903. My lead supervisor has managed to salvage me some, what we believei s, chestnut. I just ran through the hobbitt house pictures and it seems awfully close to the pics shown there, but i was curious what are the ways to identify american chestnut?
Is it in the pores, in the rays, in the weight of the material?
Pics coming this evening !!
-- "there aren’t many hand tools as awe-inspiring as the #8 jointer. I mean, it just reeks of cast iron heft and hubris" - Smitty
I have some in my stock, left over from an Amish barn from the 1870’s in SW Pennsylvania. Biggest difference for me over say, brown old growth oak is when cut right, you get a very slight purplish tint in parts of the wood. And the grain changes a little more often, more like hickory than the usual straight runs in oak. Other than that, it handles about the same as oak, and a lot of people cannot tell the difference. I’m almost out, and it saddens me. The new growth insect resistance chestnut is nothing like it and rather plain.
Paul, thanks for the information. The growth rings on it are very tight and appears to have distinguishable pores looking at the end grain. Im so excited to have these handful of pieces i cant wait to get home and clean em up a little.
On another note there is some framing material that will be removed as well. Here in new england would they have used chestnut for load bearing partitions?
-- "there aren’t many hand tools as awe-inspiring as the #8 jointer. I mean, it just reeks of cast iron heft and hubris" - Smitty
It a good possibility it the same species, it would be well worth looking into. Take a plug cutter and take a sample out of your stock and the beams…good luck BC
In the NE US, Chestnut was used a lot for outdoor things, like fenceposts and outer doors on barns, decades ago. I do know the two large Pennsylvania built barns I have salvaged wood from had oak beam construction, not chestnut. The flooring and a lot of the doors were original chestnut, which would both get wet, snow from wagon wheels in the winter on the floors, and rain and snow on the doors. And I found some old fence posts on the back of one of the lots, but it was finally rotted to nothing.
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