black locust

[4x4American]

Were you running junkyard special blades?

[Kbeitz]

Were you running junkyard special blades?

Most likely. But they cut everything else ok.   

[4x4American]

Yea but black locust is a different animal

[Den Socling]

Do you think the black line was caused by the tree getting bent in a wind?

[curdog]

I used to work in an office that had black locust floors throughout the whole building. They were really nice looking. Whoever sawed it probably went through quite a few blades. Had a nice yellow tint to it and held up well to all the mud tracked in the building.

[dgdrls]

Gave the last batch I sawed to my neighbor
he built a deck/stoop for his "bunkhouse"
Also used it for deck posts at my previous home, 


 

[Don P]

The building codes have always recognized naturally decay resistant species as alternatives to treated in non ground contact situations like sills. Sometimes inspectors don't know that and then the error in interpretation begins to gain traction.

Black Locust is an invasive species but it is a native invasive vs a non native invasive. They are a short lived colonizer but there are always outliers in any broad generalizations. I've noticed the same thing previously mentioned with regards to soil type. Our side of the mountain is on granite and more acidic soils, we live on beach front property, 600 million years ago there was an inland sea in what is now the range in front of us and there is limestone and dolomite, sweeter soils over there, and much nicer locust.

I like to use it for posts and beams whenever I get good ones, strong, low shrinkage, naturally decay resistant. The American Teak.

I've run into some black shake, I assume from a bacterial infection.

Stuart Flooring offers/offered it as strip flooring, they call it "Appalachian Gold". It is a beautiful wood, very often taking on a reddish hue as it ages in sunlight.

If you look it up in the wood handbook it has an average end grain compressive strength of about 10,000 psi, compare that to average concrete at 3,000 psi, that is some impressive stuff.

[moodnacreek]

The demand for locust here is more than the supply. I can sell 2x8 x8 + all day long. Same for w. oak.  One third of the locust logs are no good for lumber especially large ones. I seldom take orders for locust planks longer than 10 foot because of defects.  Locust is really a pioneer weed, seldom straight but rot resistant.  The price is approaching $2.00 bd. ft.

[4x4American]

My buddy has a good sized mechanized logging operation, he's cutting a preserve down near Albany and the landowners were trying to get rid of the locust logs by drilling holes into them and planting round up pills in them.  The OP has been buying logs from him I guess.  And he's selling to a few other guys but from the way he describes it, he put an ad on CL about these locust logs and he's been ringing off the hook.  I had a locust order a couple weeks back, ~50 6x6x8' but the round up scared them away.  Alot of the logs are already rotting so kinda defeats the point of buying locust you ask me. 

[loggah]

I made lombard log hauler sleds out of it, was the most rot resistant wood i could find. A circular sawmill saws it pretty well,but it laughs at drills and skill saws.

[rasman57]

Those log sleds are really spectacular.  I had to lookup a Lombard and yours are even better.  Sure would love to see those in action.  Good work!

[Roxie]

Loggah, your pictures are always incredible!  The shot of you sitting on the sled, shows the scale of it perfectly.   

[Jemclimber]

I made my deck from it and like many people, wish I had access to more logs. I've also made Adirondack chairs from black locust, (to replace the plastic ones).



  

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

That looks GREAT Jem!

[petefrom bearswamp]

Wish I could get some here.
My builder friend says the new PT is crap.
Built a sugar house with BL 6x6 poles in the mid 70's still very much intact, but had to drill it to get those old ring shank pole barn nails in

[Gtodoug]

Rare exit for me here from lurking...  I have an extensive amount of black locust on our old family property.  The small plot of black locust planted in the 1930s/40s was intended to be harvested.  Long story, but no harvesting ever took place and the small plot has propagated all thru the property so I have access to some rather large (sometimes straight, sometimes, not so much).  Many of the originally planted ones have fallen due to the shallow root it seems to have. 

I've poured thru the forums trying to soak up all the info available so this thread is very timely.  I've gathered up a assortment of blades from Frozen hardwood to bimetal and stellite.  The later I was thinking might work on the trees that had already fallen.  Based on how hard I already know cutting dried black locust is with a chainsaw, I don't have much hope for even the stellite bladeon these dried logs.  Am I off base?

I have only cut one tree thus far.  Dropped a fresh 10-12 inch one last fall.   It was clearly dense, but not bad at all to cut with a normal blade.  Not sure if this is the only one in existence, but what kid in Indiana shouldn't grow up with a Goalrilla with a 6" black locust post? (Craigslist find, post was trashed). Not being sure if it would twist,  I let it season over the winter. It did not move at all, so I just put it in a couple weeks back.



Next project in the next few weeks is a lot bigger,  I want to put a new privacy fence in. I would like to put the fence in when the wood is still green. I am very much a newbie Sawyer and feel like I am overthinking how to saw it.  Is it ok to just flat saw it?  How much offset pith is trouble? Since I want to put it up green (I don't want to have to drill  holes for a huge fence) is it ok to go ahead double nail it or just one nail for a few weeks / months to keep splitting to a minimum?

I expect after cutting and building the fence I'll have better answers for the other project... The eternal black locust cabin....  (Something else I'm not sure exists!)

[Dave Shepard]

I resawed a very dry black locust 12x12 with a 1 1/4"x.055" 4° DoubleHard band with no trouble. It did take plenty of hp.

[Ox]

Black locust is the most stable and shrink resistant wood I've ever milled.  The pith is basically non existent in a solid tree.  Flat saw through and through and you'll have no troubles.  At least I didn't.  Posts, boards, whatever doesn't warp, twist or crack.  It's the best wood ever.  The only drawback is driving nails or screws after it's seasoned.  You'll likely need to pre-drill.

[Dave Shepard]

What do your logs look like? Are they nice and straight? It's hard to find straight stuff around here. I get a fair bit of degrade in locust.

[Ox]

My logs are pretty straight, for locust that is.  I think I'm fairly lucky cause just about every one I've ever milled was solid through.  But these were crowded when they grew, so fast and straight was the rule for them.  I'm not sure how they would grow out in the middle of a field.  A tangled mess, maybe?  Beats me.  There's some down by where I grew up that are close to 6 feet across.  No kidding!  I'll get pics of them someday with someone standing in front for scale.  I've never seen anything like them.  Probably about 5 feet of them is hollow by now!