Anyone else in the South mill ulmus crassifolia aka cedar elm or Texas elm? Mostly just Texas/Arkansas/Oklahoma. There's a northern version but don't know how it compares. Been one of my favorite woods since the first coffee table I made from a heavily spalted one. Nothing I've ever worked with sands so smooth - 220 grit feels like glass. The listed density and hardness for it always seemed way shy of the reality of our local stuff. Dry, super hot climate, guess everything grows slower. I finally took a well dried block of cedar elm and put it on the scale, was 47.4 lbs. The block was 3.5 x 14 x 32", works out to .907 cu ft, so the wood is 52 lbs/cu ft which explains a lot. It's only listed as being 41 lb/cu ft which never made sense to me, and the listed hardness (1320 Janka) similar to ash. Seems to have much more in common with pignut hickory, which is 52 lbs/cu ft and 2160 Janka. Not many harder and denser among our native trees but mesquite, live oak, and osage orange.
I've been baffled by our local red oak for a long time too, I've milled a variety of them and the hardness and density is insane compared to commercial red oak. I just weighed a block and calculated density and it was 63 lb/cu ft, which is what dry live oak is! May not be all the way dry down to 12 percent, but close I think. My planer has always screamed planing it, more even than mesquite which is 2300 Janka. I have to get my blades resharpened so often it's ridiculous. Now I know why. Not all is like this, but a lot is really burl-like and crazy dense. This is why I've looked to the experience of Aussie millers way more than American ones, the wood here has much more in common with their extreme hardwoods than any typical American hardwoods.
I've been baffled by our local red oak for a long time too, I've milled a variety of them and the hardness and density is insane compared to commercial red oak. I just weighed a block and calculated density and it was 63 lb/cu ft, which is what dry live oak is! May not be all the way dry down to 12 percent, but close I think. My planer has always screamed planing it, more even than mesquite which is 2300 Janka. I have to get my blades resharpened so often it's ridiculous. Now I know why. Not all is like this, but a lot is really burl-like and crazy dense. This is why I've looked to the experience of Aussie millers way more than American ones, the wood here has much more in common with their extreme hardwoods than any typical American hardwoods.
