Hello,
I have access to some almond trees that have been uprooted and are laying on their side in an orchard. They have been out of ground for around 6 to 8 months, but they are still intact and have not been cut in any way. Some of them look like (from a distance, I haven’t seen them up close yet) they are pretty big and might yield a handful of good planks, at least from the road. Seeing that they have sat that long of a time out of ground, dead, will they still be good, or have they already started checking and rotting? I live near Sacramento, CA and we have only had one or two rains since they have been on the ground, and neither storm produced much rain.
Jasen Morris
Edited 10/6/2008 12:11 am ET by JMorris
Replies
According to an article in the 1891 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, almond wood is reddish in color and is used by cabinet makers--or at least it was then. Almond trees are closely related to cherries and plums, a little more distantly to peaches, and still more distantly to apples, pears, and roses. Of course cherry is a very valued and usable wood. I have milled some peach and plum wood. They are beautiful woods, but have a tendency to check and crack if the ends are not sealed very well while they dry. Give it a try. Hurry up and make some boards, seal the ends, sticker them to dry for a year or so, and make something. If your trees are not very large in diameter, you may at least get some wood for boxes or turnings, if you have a lathe.
Thankyou for the info!
I am going to go look around tomorrow and see if I can find some good wood.
Jasen Morris
Some fruit/nuts are harvested by using a mechanical shaker, if this was done to these trees the wood may be not be any good do to checking or 'shakes' throughout. One way to find out is mill some of it.
Assuming the wood is "free" (i.e. remove it from the orchard and it's yours), this sounds like an opportunity to exchange some "sweat equity" (milling effort and cost) for potentially useful, low-cost lumber.
Although a lumber expert might be able to give you a guess about potential deterioration over the time the trees have been out of the ground, actually milling it may be the only way to tell for sure.
Or, you could take your logs to the local hospital for MRIs. ;-)
I have had some, and it was really hard, heavy and difficult to work. Orchard trees don't normally provide a very long straight log, so that usually hurts the value.
I have my own small mill, and I wouldn't bother with it even if it was free, and I had to go get it. But then I get plenty of free trees that are easier to work with.
The sapwood may be starting to go bad after this time, but the heartwood has good resistance to decay.
If you are not set up to mill and dry lumber, this is not a good place to start. My 2 ¢
Yeah,
you're right, it is hard. Too hard for my bandsaw, and a new blade... I have a Delta 14" bandsaw with the riser option, so it has a 12 inch cutting capacity. So I went to pick out a couple logs today, looked around for some that had as little checking as possible (none scored perfectly), and found a couple that were fairly close. Brought them back to my parents farm, and we cut them into 12" thick logs by chainsaw so I could push them through my bandsaw. Picked out my first one, and started to cut and by about halfway through the 2-3 foot log, the blade I had on there started to go dull, so I put on a new one, which screamed through the rest of that cut, and one more. Then I started a third pass, and I've made it about 5 inches into the log and called it a night after stalling my saw three or four times in a row without any progress =( I guess I need to get a more durable blade (103"). Any ideas? I also recall seeing blades designed specifically to cut green wood somewhere, is that true?
Edited 10/7/2008 11:54 pm ET by JMorris
As others have mentioned it is hard and dense. Makes good firewood. I picked out a length of almond firewood several years ago, crosscut it to about 10" and put it on the lathe. Turned it into a nice carving mallet. Gary
I've been milling some select pieces of almond firewood. It reminds me of oak in hardness and coarse grained texture. Even harder and more coarse with 1/4 to 1/2" growth rings and walnut wood colors in the heartwood. Lots of cracks though this was seasoned as firewood without sealing. Only 1% I'd guess was straight and knot free enough to bother milling. I'm going to make a xylophone with the wood. It has a nice tone. Hard to sand and cut though for sure.
Half of the good sounding keys that I milled have pretty bad looking cracks but they sound good. Some cracked keys sound horrible and we're rejected.
Photo is on an oak counter top.
For what it's worth, I live in the Sacramento area as well and I picked up a few rounds of Almond about a year ago. It definitely has to be sealed at the ends otherwise it warps and checks very badly. The sap wood is not really any good but the heartwood is very hard. I found that I got the most out of it by using it for turnings. It makes beautiful turned pieces!
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