naturally durable species

[codeworks]

what kinds of wood down in texas, is "naturally durable to termites", i know pressure treated, kreosote treated etc, but are there any cedars that are actually resisitant to termites?

 

[Papio Bldg Dept]

Not sure if they have Osage Orange in texas, but I haven't had any termite problems with that, and I use them for just about everything from fence posts to feeder legs and skids.

 

[DRP]

I've seen them mud tunnel over black locust to get to the "soft" oak above. They will eat oak but one telltale of termites damage on oak is they eat the wood between the rays but cannot eat the the ray wood, it's too tough for them.

Here you go from the forest products labs;

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2004/fpl_2004_arango001.pdf

They mention density as being one form of resistance... Locust and Osage and 2 oaks, I'm betting live oak would be one of those. Certain extractives can also give resistance to attack, they mention juniper, which I assume is junperis virginiana... eastern redcedar. I'd stick to the heartwood of any of them but especially the cedar. If it isn't ground contact I've kicked them out with borate.

 

[jim baird]

Black cherry (prunus serotina) is very durable, as spikes of it endure in my home woodlot for many years, but it does tend to get riddled by carpenter ants. I use a tall spike of it for a flagpole that has endured for approx twenty years.

A local lumber supply that ran a window/door shop made its sills out of white and/or post oak. They showed me a sill they made and threw on the ground outside for many years where it stayed unchanged.

I have some pieces of teak that were dumpster dived from the back yard of a Honda motorcycle dealer about thirty years ago, and they laid out the yard, until I just used one in an outbuilding for counter legs. (Honda used to make its shipping crates from teak)

A nephew in SW VA used locally cut and milled black locust for his porch flooring, but said he had 60% waste and had to pilot all nail holes.

 

[Papio Bldg Dept]

A nephew in SW VA used locally cut and milled black locust for his porch flooring, but said he had 60% waste and had to pilot all nail holes.

sounds like osage...make all your cuts when green or ship it off to the mill, cause the center of that is hard as a rock. I bent a 12" spike in a pilot hole this summer trying to set a corner post.

 

[DRP]

That's where I am Jim, the yield sounds about right or even optimistic for locust, it is not an easy tree to get anything out of. At the primary processing end it isn't much better. I cleared a lot last year that was old pasture overrun by locust and ailanthus. Hmm, the neighbor there is a Baird, nice young man. I think the church got about 20 loads of locust firewood, trees I could see had no timber right off the bat. From the remainder I probably got about 50% yield of good 6x6's and the other ~50% had doty areas that made them garden timbers. We're heating off the slabs and "dimensional firewood" that came out of the third half. To run a 3/8" lag without twisting it off requires a 5/16" pilot and soap. I try to avoid sawing it most of the time, it takes more horsepower than I have and 4 feet of expensive steel can ruin a guys day when it turns blue. An interesting factoid on locust, you all know the compressive strengths of concrete, the upper end of locust compressive strength parallel to grain is 10,000 psi. One of my friends is building a timberframe addition out of locust, I've done a few mortise and tennon roof brackets out of it, I pity his elbows. All said though a good stick is one good stick.

For durability (decay) a saying popped to mind

"White oak, throw it on the ground. Red oak, never lay it down"