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No venison, but some nice Pine!!!

Jamie Straw

Jamie Straw

Joined
May 28, 2015
Messages
1,607
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Location
Bainbridge Island, WA
No joy for hubby when he went deer hunting this week, but he brought me back some nice rounds of (what we think is) Ponderosa Pine. Super-tight growth rings, 12.5"-13"D. It does appear fairly pitchy, which brings me to ask -- Is it better to let it season before turning, or best to go green as usual?? ...and any other reflections on this wood of course. He'll be cutting the piths out over the next day or two, and I have Anchoseal.

Pine Chunks.jpg
 
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The bark doesn't seem top be quite right, but then regional differences can account for a different appearance. Ponderosa pine is dense and heavy ... the name ponderosa comes from the word ponderous because it is slow growing and heavy. If you scratch the bark of ponderosa pine, you will detect a very definite sweet scent sort of like tutti-frutti. The heartwood has a very high rosin content.
 
Bill Boehme said:
The bark doesn't seem top be quite right, but then regional differences can account for a different appearance. Ponderosa pine is dense and heavy ... the name ponderosa comes from the word ponderous because it is slow growing and heavy. If you scratch the bark of ponderosa pine, you will detect a very definite sweet scent sort of like tutti-frutti. The heartwood has a very high rosin content.
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Haven't gone out to scratch it yet, but everything else fits. It's very, very heavy and, as I mentioned, super-tight growth rings -- comes from a dry area of WA state. On my side of the mountains, stuff grows much faster. Definitely resinous/rosinous or whatever.😉 Will compare some pictures tomorrow.
 
Jamie Straw said:
Haven't gone out to scratch it yet, but everything else fits. It's very, very heavy and, as I mentioned, super-tight growth rings -- comes from a dry area of WA state. On my side of the mountains, stuff grows much faster. Definitely resinous/rosinous or whatever.😉 Will compare some pictures tomorrow.
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Dry mountainous western states also fits. I've burned a lot of ponderosa pine knots when I used to backpack in the Gila Wilderness. The heartwood makes wonderful handles for kitchen tools. No finish is needed because there is so much resin/rosin that no detergent or soap will ever penetrate the wood.

BTW, the difference between resin and rosin is mostly how long the tree has been dead. Rosin is the solid form of resin after all of the VOCs have evaporated. I gathered my firewood from downed trees that have been down so long that nothing remained other than the heart wood. By that time, a hard waxy rosin was all that remained of the resin. It looks like your wood came from a live tree so in your case it would be resin. My guess is that it takes many years for the resin to naturally dry out. There may not be be much heart wood in what you have and I don't know anything about the sapwood, but I would guess that it might have the tendency to gum up a bowl gouge.
 
Jamie-be prepared if you use a band saw to gum up your blade terribly. Wd 40 on blade may help for a short time. I cut a burl from the Mich St campus, and what a pain. The burl part was just plain gummy. That was 6-7 years ago and I just ran across a some what rounded blank in my shed devoted to MSU wood, and still am avoiding.
Also the shavings can stick to your shoes, and get into grooves if any. After it dries it should be ok tho.

Gretch

PS. Thoughtful husband
 
Raul McCai said:
I've read that if you warm the wet lumber of the ponderosa that it can take on a blue stain. That might be interesting if it's a pretty blue.
Maybe from the blue stain fungus?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_stain_fungus

The roots were actually used to make a blue dye.

http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_pipo.pdf
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Blue logs were once considered not good for lumber (due to rot). Then they began using them for construction grade lumber. Now Blue Pine is considered a prime decorating lumber for wall paneling. Sometime it looks good and some not. What we use in turning runs the gamit from fresh off the woods to been down for a long time. After the wood is dry there will not be a new formation of the blue stain, because as in all funfus growth it requires moisture to grow.
 
Gerald Lawrence said:
Blue logs were once considered not good for lumber (due to rot). Then they began using them for construction grade lumber. Now Blue Pine is considered a prime decorating lumber for wall paneling. Sometime it looks good and some not. What we use in turning runs the gamit from fresh off the woods to been down for a long time. After the wood is dry there will not be a new formation of the blue stain, because as in all funfus growth it requires moisture to grow.
Click to expand...

Brought back memories if cheap "wormy maple"
The some thought to market it as "ambrosia maple"

Sort of like who would eat a slim fish when they could eat orange roughy
Al
 
hockenbery said:
...Sort of like who would eat a slim fish when they could eat orange roughy ...
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... Or, why eat musht, a fish that favors brackish water, dines on floating masses of filimantacious algae (AKA pond scum), and is on the IUCN's list of world's worst invasive alien species when, instead, you can have a fish named Tilapia. What wonders a sexy name will help create!
 
Bill Boehme said:
Dry mountainous western states also fits. I've burned a lot of ponderosa pine knots when I used to backpack in the Gila Wilderness. The heartwood makes wonderful handles for kitchen tools. No finish is needed because there is so much resin/rosin that no detergent or soap will ever penetrate the wood.

BTW, the difference between resin and rosin is mostly how long the tree has been dead. Rosin is the solid form of resin after all of the VOCs have evaporated. I gathered my firewood from downed trees that have been down so long that nothing remained other than the heart wood. By that time, a hard waxy rosin was all that remained of the resin. It looks like your wood came from a live tree so in your case it would be resin. My guess is that it takes many years for the resin to naturally dry out. There may not be be much heart wood in what you have and I don't know anything about the sapwood, but I would guess that it might have the tendency to gum up a bowl gouge.
Click to expand...

Mmmmm, I'm hoping that the sap-wood is the ~1" of light-colored outer wood in the picture below. However, if the heart-wood is only the darkest wood in the very center, nope that's not much.😛 On the other hand, all of the wood is so very, very dense, makes me wonder if it doesn't matter that much. Quite resinous and a fair amount of checking on most of the rounds. I think we ("we" hah, hah) will chainsaw out the pith, paint the ends and put it in the big bin I use for letting things sit. See how it looks next summer.

Rosin: makes me think of baseball pitchers and playing the violin (which I tried for awhile as a kid).

Pine Close-up.jpg
 
Sticks to kitties too!

Gretch Flo said:
Jamie-be prepared if you use a band saw to gum up your blade terribly. Wd 40 on blade may help for a short time. I cut a burl from the Mich St campus, and what a pain. The burl part was just plain gummy. That was 6-7 years ago and I just ran across a some what rounded blank in my shed devoted to MSU wood, and still am avoiding.
Also the shavings can stick to your shoes, and get into grooves if any. After it dries it should be ok tho.

Gretch

PS. Thoughtful husband
Click to expand...

I usually use PAM cooking spray on the band saw blade, perhaps will go with the WD40 just in case. Can only imagine about the shavings (from green wood). BTW, it sticks to cats too -- our older cat, Mikki, came in with a couple dabs of pitch in his fur.😛

Mikki_Combo_x2.jpg
 
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Thanks!

Brian McInturff said:
Make sure and cover everything in the shop when you start turning. It can be a "sticky mess" on everything the dust/shavings come in contact with.
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Oh, man, thanks! There's a lot of stuff within spitting distance of the lathe! I guess I won't wear my designer jeans either.🙄
 
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Bill Boehme said:
The bark doesn't seem top be quite right, but then regional differences can account for a different appearance. Ponderosa pine is dense and heavy ... the name ponderosa comes from the word ponderous because it is slow growing and heavy. If you scratch the bark of ponderosa pine, you will detect a very definite sweet scent sort of like tutti-frutti. The heartwood has a very high rosin content.
Click to expand...

I agree with Bill, it does not look like the ponderosa that grows around here. Ours has a much thicker bark with more widely spaced cracking of the bark. It may be a matter of color balance, but the pieces in your picture look pinker than our ponderosa. If a twig with needles made it home, you can recognize ponderosa by the fact that the needles come in tufts of three. The bluing occurs when the tree dies before getting cut (usually from pine bark beetles here).
 
Dennis J Gooding said:
I agree with Bill, it does not look like the ponderosa that grows around here. Ours has a much thicker bark with more widely spaced cracking of the bark. It may be a matter of color balance, but the pieces in your picture look pinker than our ponderosa. If a twig with needles made it home, you can recognize ponderosa by the fact that the needles come in tufts of three. The bluing occurs when the tree dies before getting cut (usually from pine bark beetles here).
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No needles or cones.🙁 I know a miller on the island who could tell me, I'll take a hunk over to him sometime. Thanks for the details, will compare the picture with the live thing, see if there's a color balance difference.
 
Jamie Straw said:
No needles or cones.🙁 I know a miller on the island who could tell me, I'll take a hunk over to him sometime. Thanks for the details, will compare the picture with the live thing, see if there's a color balance difference.
Click to expand...

Here's a typical example of ponderosa pine bark. As Dennis said, the bark is very thick and is divided into large plate-like chunks.


image.jpeg
 
Gretch Flo said:
... Also the shavings can stick to your shoes, and get into grooves if any. After it dries it should be ok tho....
Click to expand...

Walking on carpet helps to clean out the pitch in the grooves.

Jamie Straw said:
I usually use PAM cooking spray on the band saw blade, perhaps will go with the WD40 just in case. Can only imagine about the shavings (from green wood). BTW, it sticks to cats too -- our older cat, Mikki, came in with a couple dabs of pitch in his fur.😛 ...
Click to expand...

I also use PAM and I think that it is much better than using WD-40. I've been told that WD-40 will also shorten the life of the bandsaw tires. I'm not willing to test that theory out on my bandsaw. Cutting a bunch of hard dry dusty wood like mesquite helps "cleanse" the blades of goo, but doesn't do much for any of the goo that is stuck on the cat or your shoes.

We also have a yellow yard lion. Mel (Full name: Mellow Yellow) was my dad's kitty before my dad passed away a few months ago at age 93.

Dennis J Gooding said:
Here is a ponderosa by my driveway.🙂

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Desktop/IMG_4630.JPG
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We can't see files that are on your computer's hard drive. 🙄 They need to be uploaded to the forum server.
 
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Bill Boehme said:
[Snip]I also use PAM and I think that it is much better than using WD-40. I've been told that WD-40 will also shorten the life of the bandsaw tires.[Snip]
We also have a yellow yard lion. Mel (Full name: Mellow Yellow) was my dad's kitty before my dad passed away a few months ago at age 93.
We can't see files that are on your computer's hard drive. 🙄 They need to be uploaded to the forum server.
Click to expand...

WD40 has some kind of solvent in it, that's why I only use it to unstick stuck metal things.

I had to upload Mikki twice, I think the first time the file was too big, so I reduced him (not literally) and reloaded. He has room-mates, BatBoy and Robin (and I promise this is the last cat picture😉 )

B&R nested.jpg
 
Dennis J Gooding said:
I will try again. Here is a ponderosa pine by my driveway.
Click to expand...

Wow, I might have trouble sleeping at night with him outside the window.😉 Haven't had a chance to go back and look close up at the bark. We're getting ready to swap out pellet stoves tomorrow. Spent 6 hours on the road Wednesday, lots of falderal yesterday to get the engine hoist moved, hooked up and bringing the new one out of the truck. Then today, had to clear a big, big path through the shop to get ready for tomorrow. Wish us luck!!
 
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