black locust

[Enchanted Forester]

I would like to know if there is anyone out there utilizing black locust, other than its' lowest use as firewood.  It is a totally under used resource as far as I am concerned.  I myself have been milling for some 10 years now here in Western Mass.

[ID4ster]

In the Finger Lake region of NY black locust is prized for grape arbor poles. They're strong and they don't rot  and so are used on the ends of the rows especially. There is one landowner between Addison and Woodhull, NY that has a lot of locust on his property and he and his crew are constantly making poles to sell. Go by most any time and they'll have stacks of cut and sharpened poles curing out and ready to be shipped. They've got a real steady market.   

[Ron Wenrich]

I've sawn for posts and know of people that have used it for deck boards.  I also sold it to one guy who made playground equipment. 

[Dodgy Loner]

Most common use for it in my area is for split-rail fencing.

[tyb525]

It makes real pretty furniture, IMO.

[Dave Shepard]

We harvest and saw black locust. I've made fence posts, both random shape, and 4x4, 6x6 etc. I've also sawn out sleepers and boards for woodland walkways. We have a customer that gets a lot of these walkway jobs. They are usually short runs over wet spots or streams on woodland trails. It's a great wood, both tough, and rot resistant.

[Dodgy Loner]

If I ever get my hands on some I'll have plenty of good uses for it.  I agree that it's a very versatile wood, but the split-rail fencing is the only use of commercial importance around here.  If it were easier to nail, it would probably be a more popular substitute for pressure-treated pine

[Dave Shepard]

We're wondering if we can get away with using it for sill plates in houses. I'd rather have that than PT, but I doubt you would find a building inspector that would cooperate. We have used timberlok screws with great success, and the air nailer seems to work ok too.

[Dodgy Loner]

I remember seeing one building code that was brought up on the forum where black locust was the only wood that could be substituted for PT pine...So I guess it depends on the location.  Sorry, can't find the link to it .

[Dave Shepard]

I'll have to look into that.

[Enchanted Forester]

D S, same in our area.  Building inspector's around here are just getting updated info on locust as an a much more durable and stronger alternative than pt.  Also, from the Certified Organic Farms in this state--they DO NOT allow pt on site in order to certify a farm as organic.   I saw pretty regular sill plates for home construction.  Best to harvest in winter, mill sills and let sit 6 months.  Had a client out your way that was buying 8/4 locust, live edge and using it on trails.  Wondering why I have not heard from him in awhile.   Enchanted Forester

[Engineer]

I have a bunch of small gnarly black locust on my land that I have been cutting for firewood.  A couple of the trees have been straight enough to use for poles or posts, and I have about 100 board feet of 4/4 locust boards stockpiled.  I'd love to find a source around here that had some nice straight logs to mill, but the only ones I see are in people's front yards.

Locust would make great sill boards.  I put a piece of locust in as a door threshold on my shed at my old house, and it's still there and solid as the day it was put in.  It's hard to even damage it, let alone rot.

[SwampDonkey]

A few years back it seems it was real popular around towns and farm houses, they planted it like it was some new trend or style to follow. I don't see anyone doing it now. That was a long time ago, I suppose they liked the flowers. I see some near old long abandoned farm homes with new forest growing up around. That perennial bamboo was a big thing too it seems. As far as the wood, I never saw many straight ones even in yards. The most knarly looking stuff I've seen. It may have been some New Englanders coming here to homestead because some of these farms aren't much older than the rail road of 150 years ago. Many were abandoned in WWI and all you have is a rock cellar left.

[Engineer]

I love the stuff, thorns and all.  It makes the BEST firewood, but I try not to overcut it as I'd like to encourage new seedpods to sprout.  I also leave the stumps and encourage them to resprout, and any new saplings are left alone.  If I had the choice, I'd have acres of nothing BUT locust.  The little tiny leaves are a big bonus too - nothing to rake up.

[Enchanted Forester]

Locust loves growing on limestone deposits.  In Vermont, on the west side of the Conneticut River, there is a limestone intrusion from West Brattleboro north to around Springfield.  The locust growing there is beautiful.  Straight, lacking the locust borer that is so prevelent in our area below this intrusion.  Also in New York state the old inland sea from750 million years ago supports tremendous stands of locust.  I believe it was planted extensively after the new interstates were built there.  Locust grew on sterile soils and spread rapidly.  I believe also that New York has declared it an invasive species as has Massachusetts.

[SwampDonkey]

No shortage of calcareous bedrock here, even the cedars grow on it.

[ErikC]

  I have some of it around here, leftovers from older times I guess. It grows like a thicket. I like the flowers and the quail like the seedpods, they eat all winter from them. One fell down by the creek, now there are about a 100 starting up along the old log, with roots still in the ground. I don't believe I could easily kill it off, even if I wanted to. It does make good firewood.

[mike_van]

State forester here called it an invasive species. I saw a lot of it for trailers, bridge decks & sills.  It was used for pegs in timberframe barns. Old timers said it would last two years longer than stone. 

[tyb525]

I was lucky enough to find one that was about 20" with only a little rot in the middle. I don't like the trees though, they're taking over our pasture as we speak. Can't bushog them too well, cause they might poke holes in the tires.

[okie]

I was lucky enough to find one that was about 20" with only a little rot in the middle. I don't like the trees though, they're taking over our pasture as we speak. Can't bushog them too well, cause they might poke holes in the tires.

Ty, sure you got black locust and not honey locust? I'm cutting a bunch of honey locust now, well earlier today. What I understand to be black locust only has small thorns on the branch tips, honey locust I know has gargantuan spears all over the trunk and branches. Some HL have no thorns though, do'nt know why that is. A local farmer asked me to come cut all the honey locust I could use, got upset when I was cuttin one that had no thorns. I had one heck of a time convincing him it was in fact a honey locust.

[tyb525]

Yes they are Honey Locust. I thought that's what Engineer was talking about.

[Engineer]

Nope, I got Black Locust.  There's thorns, just not too big.  1/4" to 3/4" long.

[Polly]

around here we got black locust that are used for fence post , yellow locust that get soft in the center good only for fire wood and honey locustwith the long thorns they are death on tractor tires seems like someone on the forum said it makes pretty lumber  i got 4or 5 black locust logs that fell several years ago that were not laying on the ground i strted last saw last fall but had trouble with the saw  ie band wheel belts worn out i got all new belts and am fixing to try again hope i have better luck this time

[tyb525]

What I milled was Honey locust, and I'll see if I can get a picture. It has swirly grain on some peices and has pretty shades of orange and red.

[Enchanted Forester]

Polly,  Woodmizer came out with a 4 degree hook angle bandsaw blade that cuts beautifully through seasoned black locust.  Mind you may only get around 400 board feet cut before you have to change blades, but it cuts true and no waviness.

[Polly]

 thanks for the info i bought a new box of blades from woodmizer but i dont know what kind they are i will have to look  kinda looks to show what i know about sawing when i dont know what kind of blades i am using 

[tyb525]

When they're still green the regular 9 degree blade should do fine, at least it did for me, and I only have 10 horses  .

[wconklin]

D S, same in our area.  Building inspector's around here are just getting updated info on locust as an a much more durable and stronger alternative than pt. 

Black locust, along with Eastern Red Cedar are in the massachusetts state building code book as alternatives to PT

[Dave Shepard]

Hello wconklin! Will I be at your house raising tomorrow, or is that a different wconklin?

[dutchman]

I've got a customer that uses black locust for Adorondeck chairs.
Buys mostly clear 1"x6"x 5',help get rid of shorts.

[climbncut]

Look for conks on locust! If they are present, you can almost guarantee there will be internal decay.

[Ironwood]

I love locust. It is said " would be the most valueable N.A. timber if not for the bark borer voids and scars".

 Shows you what some are taught, "invasive", yeah right. How about indiginous.

 Ironwood

[SwampDonkey]

They have planted some around towns up here. It may seed in vacant lots adjacent to it. But, on old home sites I find grown in with native local woods, the black locust is confined to where it was planted. If over grown with spruce and maple forest it's had it. Often time old farms will grow up in white spruce around here.

[Engineer]

I love locust. It is said " would be the most valuable N.A. timber if not for the bark borer voids and scars".

Shows you what some are taught, "invasive", yeah right. How about indigenous.

Ironwood

If black locust is an invasive species, then I would like it to invade my entire property.  I have had a dozen or so BL's seed themselves on disturbed hillsides around the house since it was built.  I take great care in making sure I don't damage them, and I have already pruned a couple for clean upright growth.  One is in a perfect location to thrive, a southern hillside open to the sun, and the tree is three years old and already 15 feet tall.  By the time I'm 60, I might have some fence posts.   

[stonebroke]

If you wait until you are 60 you will have pole barn poles.

Stonebroke

[Ironwood]

I have patch here doing the same w/.

Ironwood

[Den Socling]

A few years ago, they were repairing the James Madison mansion and I was asked to dry the window sills. After 22 days, which is a long time in a vacuum kiln, I decided that they were as dry as the original sills. Not dry at all.  But this is to be expected. The wood is good outside because it is impenetrable. It won't dry for the same reason. A 6" x 6" square is mighty heavy and it stays that way.

[stonebroke]

Naw, locust dries ,it just takes ten or twenty years, which considering the life of the posts isn't much.

Stonebroke

[Magicman]

It's so "shallow rooted" that it will never stand up 60 years.....at least not in our soil.

[Engineer]

There's a lot of BIG black locusts around here.  Some have been there a lot more than 60 years, I'll bet.  Got a few that are 30" + dbh, usually roadside trees.  My own clump of BL's are over 40 years old.  I have a clay and silt loam over bedrock and they are definitely NOT shallow rooted here.

[Magicman]

I'm constantly having to cut and remove them from my woods roads.  After a wind, I can count on several being down.  When we had cattle, and after a storm, the first job was to check and fix fences.  Any BL tree that we saw leaning, we would go ahead and cut.  A 12-16 inch BL is big here.  They usually blow over by then.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen the same thing happen with aspen on some sites. They got to around 10 inches and a whole bunch were being uprooted. Tops looked good on them and no cankers, but they wouldn't stand. They weren't old or suppressed and no where near their potential diameter.

[Magicman]

Ours have no taproot.  Just surface/feeder roots that are barely below the ground.

[JimMartin9999]

Bows, both as laminates and as self-bows, are made from black locust.