old growth shaft wood
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I have some...send me a pm.
This may be a dumb question, but, just what constitutes old growth maple? I know what farmed maple is and I know what recovered sunken log woods from lakes is but just what is it that people consider "Old growth Maple"? Is it trees that are 50 years old? 100 years old? 500 years old or from natural forests where a tree has never been cut down for 10,000 years? There is a state park here in Ohio named Houston Woods. They have a stand of trees of around a hundred acres with a couple trails winding through that you are not allowed to step off of. You aren't allowed to pick up fallen branches or leaves nor any other item. They say this is the way all of Ohio was 10,000 years ago. The Rangers give history lessons about the park and they say that before the advent of man, Ohio was covered with a forest of nothing but Maple and Beech trees. About the only shrubbery that grew was ferns from lack of sunlight. They say that seedlings would drop to the ground and sprout but would soon die out from lack of sunlight. When a tree would finally die and fall to the ground the strongest seedling would shoot right up and take it's place. Since there was so little ground light the trees grew very tall very quickly with no limbs until they got quite high. This made for very straight grained trees. They also say that in the late 1700's and early 1800's that all of Ohio was cleared for farming and that the trees that are available now are the ones that came after this clearing and since they were not restricted in their growth as their ancestors were they are structurally different. Their limbs grow at much lower levels and they can grow faster as they have more limbs and leaves.
So, now my next question is, once the tree has been cut up into lumber, how can you tell what it originally was? You can count the growth rings but that only tells approx. how fast it grew. Just how does a person really determine that a piece of lumber is "old growth"?
Dick
So, now my next question is, once the tree has been cut up into lumber, how can you tell what it originally was? You can count the growth rings but that only tells approx. how fast it grew. Just how does a person really determine that a piece of lumber is "old growth"?
Dick
Ahh... the joys of Google
47 seconds of Internet rersearch indicate the OGL is lumber
taken from forest that have never been logged commercially.
These forests are the most endangered on the planet.
An additional 24 seconds yielded the information that Hard Maple
has a life span of 300 years.
You do seem to be spot on in the implication that old growth
is not descernable from the lumber itself, and it may well be
of little or no consequence.
A term Bob Mooochie would be proud of.(remember Zero deflection?)
Dale<the 71 second lumber expert>
rhncue said:
47 seconds of Internet rersearch indicate the OGL is lumber
taken from forest that have never been logged commercially.
These forests are the most endangered on the planet.
An additional 24 seconds yielded the information that Hard Maple
has a life span of 300 years.
You do seem to be spot on in the implication that old growth
is not descernable from the lumber itself, and it may well be
of little or no consequence.
A term Bob Mooochie would be proud of.(remember Zero deflection?)
Dale<the 71 second lumber expert>
rhncue said:
Thanks for the history of Ohio. It is amazing that a area still exists and wasn't affected by nature such as a forest fire, tornado or flood.
One question I have is if Ohio was covered by maple an beech trees where did the buckeye come from and in my ignorance what is a buckeye other than the mascot of The Ohio State University?
Thanks
Don't take my place of residence as being a Ohio basher. I am not a fan of that team from the north.
You make a great point here Dick. "Old growth" is mild sales malarkey, IMO. All the virgin maple forests in the Midwest were cut by 1900, possibly before then. The guy who started this post doesn't realize that Schon has an excellent and long time source for shaft maple. Schon shafts are suposedly interchageable. If he knows what to look for the poster would find a dealer with a large stock of extra Schon shafts and choose one of those! Given at least 12 to choose from, I would bet my last dollar there would be a gem or two in the group.
Martin
Martin
rhncue said:
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As far as I know in this business old growth refers to lumber from lake salvaged logs. Every piece of this wood I have seen has a very distinct and strong smell when sanded or when wet with water. This wood came from the original virgin forests along the northern border and sank on the way to the mill. It really resists warping and is darker than most contemporary maple. Growth rings can vary from 5-6 per inch to 70 per inch with most in the 20 per inch range. Weight is on average about .2 oz lighter than new wood.
The tales of straighter grain are true. I can get about from 10-15% yield from the OG wood and only 5-10% from new wood after rejecting the obviously bad boards. It is also very hard see the growth rings.
Playability is about the same as any good shaft but the appearance is different.
The tales of straighter grain are true. I can get about from 10-15% yield from the OG wood and only 5-10% from new wood after rejecting the obviously bad boards. It is also very hard see the growth rings.
Playability is about the same as any good shaft but the appearance is different.
Thanks Paul.Paul Dayton said:
Welcome to the board.
I once had an old growth shaft from the late Chester Krick.
It was dark, heavy and stiff.
Paul Dayton said:
Mr. Dayton how are you, i got the chance to hit with one of your cues a few years ago and loved it. still saving money to buy one of my own. good to know about the wood. what would be the chances of getting ashaft with 70 growth rings per inch?
pp,
Thanks. The 70 gpi stuff is impossible to get and even if you found it it would have to be straight grained with no defects making it as easy as winning the Lottery.
I measure all my shafts for stiffness and the correlation between stiffness and growth rings doesn't always hold up. I have had some shafts with 5 and 6 gpi that were stiffer than shafts with 30+ gpi. Weight is usually a better predictor.
In every 100 shafts that look the same there are always 2 or 3 that are way too flexible and a few that are noticably stiffer than the rest. The whippy ones get tossed.
Thanks. The 70 gpi stuff is impossible to get and even if you found it it would have to be straight grained with no defects making it as easy as winning the Lottery.
I measure all my shafts for stiffness and the correlation between stiffness and growth rings doesn't always hold up. I have had some shafts with 5 and 6 gpi that were stiffer than shafts with 30+ gpi. Weight is usually a better predictor.
In every 100 shafts that look the same there are always 2 or 3 that are way too flexible and a few that are noticably stiffer than the rest. The whippy ones get tossed.
old growth
My take on old growth is that is from the virgin forests, which have been pretty much all harvested, leaving you with salvage wood. Old mills/factories or sunken logs. Most of the mill and factory stuff has holes nails or other defects in it. The best IMO is the salvage wood. I've been told that because of the temperature and low oxygen levels of the Great Lakes, wood that has sunken there undergoes a slow transition. It doesn't rot the fiber of the wood, but does eat away the pulp. Pulp is where the wood stores moisture, so less pulp means less moisture changes in the wood once it is recovered and dried. The other story goes that Stradivarius used sunken wood from either high mountain lakes or Norwegian fjords. No pulp means a higher pitch(vibration), and you usually get a much higher pitch ring out of lake shafts. The stuff I have is very dark and does have a different odor when you turn it. (Joey, CK got all his old growth from me.) Unfortunately the diver who was harvesting the wood that I had, was shut down my the EPA. Stirring up the mud pulling out the logs. (Side note, the logs are all marked so they can still tell when they were logged (early 1900, and who was the logging company. The divers still had to pay a fee to the logging company to recover the logs.) Unless it's dark and smelly or has documentation, buyer beware.
My take on old growth is that is from the virgin forests, which have been pretty much all harvested, leaving you with salvage wood. Old mills/factories or sunken logs. Most of the mill and factory stuff has holes nails or other defects in it. The best IMO is the salvage wood. I've been told that because of the temperature and low oxygen levels of the Great Lakes, wood that has sunken there undergoes a slow transition. It doesn't rot the fiber of the wood, but does eat away the pulp. Pulp is where the wood stores moisture, so less pulp means less moisture changes in the wood once it is recovered and dried. The other story goes that Stradivarius used sunken wood from either high mountain lakes or Norwegian fjords. No pulp means a higher pitch(vibration), and you usually get a much higher pitch ring out of lake shafts. The stuff I have is very dark and does have a different odor when you turn it. (Joey, CK got all his old growth from me.) Unfortunately the diver who was harvesting the wood that I had, was shut down my the EPA. Stirring up the mud pulling out the logs. (Side note, the logs are all marked so they can still tell when they were logged (early 1900, and who was the logging company. The divers still had to pay a fee to the logging company to recover the logs.) Unless it's dark and smelly or has documentation, buyer beware.
The story on Stradivarius is that he soaked his wood in a river near his house.and it was not the water that changed the tonal qualities of the wood,but minerals in the water.Scientists have studied the river and found that the minerals in the water did affect and still do affect the tonal properties of wood.