Heart Pine ( viewer discretion advised)

[Fla._Deadheader]

   There have been a lot of questions asking "What is Heart Pine". There has been good info posted explaining it. Here are some pics of "REAL" : Heart Pine. Us here in the deep south, refer to it as "Fat lightered". Look closely at the resin.
   I couldn't get the pics I really wanted, but, the board is more resin than wood.  Took 5 minutes per cut, not including scraping the blade every 6 inches or so. You can tell how often we stopped forward motion by the intervals of "blade scores" on the boards. Ran full water and still scraped the resin.
  The wood was hosed and scraped with a putty knife to remove the sawdust. First time we ever sharpened a putty knife on a board. It had a "gritty" sound, like scraping sandpaper. The resin is HARD as concrete.
   The resin makes the wood seem transparent.
   The customer was taking it right to a friend that has a planer, to get it surfaced. Wish I could have went with him. Then again, Planer knives, throwing bits of steel, might not be pretty. : :
   This log laid out in a field for YEARS. Notice the lack of sapwood. There was probably 1-2 inches of sapwood when this log hit the ground.









   When we finished, the boards were nearly as smooth as glass : : ;D

[Tom]

Ah-h-h-h-h Yes-s-s-s-ss! As Bob Wills would have said.
That's fat liter alright.  Don't smoke within100 ft of it or it'll blow you into next week. :D  I think it only takes a hot day to catch it on fire :D    .........an tha's the truth!  Plhggg-g--g

[woodhaven]

Looks like it has already been varnished.

[Fla._Deadheader]

   That wood is not even wet. We have some scraps of anyone would like a small piece to play with. DON'T light it without extreme caution. ;D

[dail_h]

   Cut a lot of that when I was to the flooring  mill.Plum buggar ta saw,but we sold it faster than I could cut it. Always told the customems not to try to sand it: they always called and said  WE CAIN'T SAND THIS STUFF, Shore is purty tho. If it was hot when I was sawing,the resin smell would burn ma eyes,I hated the stuff

[woodhaven]

Yea I'll take a little bit. How about 200 -1"x12"x14'.

[Tom]

You'd have to have a padded wallet if I was the one cutting it for you Woodhaven.

Let me see now......    200 feet at $35 a foot and 12" premium of $10 a foot .. hmmmm that's $45 a foot and $10 a foot for XP (extra profit :D}  that's $55 a foot for a grand total of $11,000 plus shipping and handling.   Prices subject to change.  A 110% non-refundable, down-payment in advance required.  Delivery upon completion. ;D :D

[woodhaven]

Dang Tom,
You are a hard man to deal with. You forget I'm just a poor country boy.  

[Tom]

Yeah, me too. We don't know much about dealing way down here.  Let me see.........    Maybe I could cut you some slack on the S&H.  :D

[woodhaven]

You are just to Kind !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tom]

I know

Southern Hospitality :D :D

[hiya]

I think years ago they would split it in about 1/2 inch X 1/2 inch tie them in small bundles, hang them in the attic to dry, then use them for torches at night..

[Tom]

That could be.  We still use little chips to get a fire started.  A fair sized hunk will start a pile of land clearing debris too.  No Tires 8)

[woodhaven]

Hey I just checked the map Tom and we are not that far apart. Soooo how about you and FDH get together and give me a family discount.
He is just fooling about that Pine anyway it's just shiney from all that swamp juce.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  If ya remember, I stated that it laid out in a FIELD for many years. Swamp Juice ??? ???   BTW, Tom is my official Broker for "Heart Pine", so, ya hafta buy through him for orders over "sample" sizes.

[Jeff]

Woodhaven did you lose some kin in a swamp one time? You seem to have an adversion to it. Tom took me into the  swamps of north florida and south georgia, and just like the cedar swamps of upper michigan, they are places I love.

[Norm]

That is real pretty wood Fla_D, now seemins since I'm from up north I have to ask. What makes heart pine so expensive? I like the looks of it, what kind of things are made from it?

[Tobacco Plug]

I think years ago they would split it in about 1/2 inch X 1/2 inch tie them in small bundles, hang them in the attic to dry, then use them for torches at night..

At Colonial Williamsburg they have these copper wire and wrought iron kind of bowls, the wire as the bowl and the wrought iron straps to make a frame that holds the wood.  These are on iron poles which are set in the ground.  Kind of makes a colonial street light.  Also, people would use them as a substitute for candles or oil lamps in colonial times.

[Tobacco Plug]

Also, people would use them as a substitute for candles or oil lamps in colonial times.

I mean that people would use the wood as a substitute for candles or oil lamps, not the copper and iron frames!

[Tom]

 :D :D OH!!  You had me goin' there. :D

[Tom]

Hey Norm, can I answer about the Heart Pine?

It's difficult to answer without writing a book but:

Heart Pine is the heart wood of Southern Yellow pine. Specifically Long Leaf, Slash and Loblolly pines.  

Long Leaf was the best heart-wood producer but its population has decreased since the 1800's because of diminishing practices of burning the woods and because it was the premium saw timber of the day.  Many times it's heartwood was all but a couple of inches of the trunk of the tree.  Sawmills prided themselves in selling Heart Pine boards which were all or mostly heart wood.  It was prized everywhere for its rot resistance, insect resistance and hardness.  It was strong and used for large beams in warehouses, pilings under buildings, floor joists and flooring.

The sapwood of the trees was softer and not rot or insect resistant at all. It was sold as an inferior product for applications such as cabinet carcasses and furniture, boxes and shipping crates and the like.

Today it is seldom that you find a SYP log with half or more heart.  Most of what we revere is, as I've described before, "Streak-o-Lean".  Thats where the strip of heartwood in the board is bordered on each side by strips of the creamy white sapwood.

In comparison, I've resawed old-building beams that were 8 X 18 and 100 percent heartwood.

Now you get into the variations of heartwood.  Heartwood is deadwood in a living tree that the tree uses for support and stiffness.  It still carries fluids for much of the life of the tree but eventually the resins crystallize and seal the passage-ways in the heartwood. When the tree is cut, much of the sap/resin that is being carried in the heartwood will run out of the end of the log or boards just like the sap runs out of the sapwood.  Not being as fluid, not all runs out and leaves the wood with a red color which darkens with age.  Because it is loaded with left-over resins, it is difficult for woodworkers to finish. It gums up saw blades, planer knives, sandpaper and drill bits.  It causes the wood to be brittle and makes it difficult to drive fasteners without pre-drillng.  The resins will flow as temperature rises causing it to bubble up under finishes.  You may have heard the term "setting the Pitch".  That is a Kiln term where the temperature of the wood is raise above 160 degrees, and held there until the volatile fluids evaporate from the wood.  That cures it from running sap at lower temperatures.

The part of the heartwood that contains the crystallized resins is called "Fat lighter", "Fat", "lighter'd" or "Fat wood" in the south,  It is so highly inflammable that exposure to a match flame will ignite an entire stump. It burns with such voracity that black smoke pours off of the wood because the fuel is being vaporized faster than it will burn.  A similar scene can be created by igniting paper soaked in diesel oil.

This "Fat Lighter" has varying degrees of crystallized resin in it.  That which has the most has an appearance of polished glass when cut with a blade.  A saw chips through it rather than taking off curls of sawdust but the surface is so hard that it looks like it was doused with water. The  Resins will melt as a saw blade passes through the kerf and re-crystallize immediately after exiting the log causing excessive "gumming".  The saw blade grows in size from this resin until it fills the kerf and friction causes heat which increases gumming.  The drag of the blade in the wood stresses motors and the blade will lose its ability to cut straight.

Woodworkers suffer the same plight as sand paper fills up with resins, planer blades become coated  and glue fails to adhere.

The beauty of the wood is in the color and hues.  It is a deep red-brown and the surfaces look as if they are made of glass.  While difficult to finish, once finished it is hard, warm colored and makes excellent flooring.  

In today's market it is valued as much for its age and having been recycled than for  the wood itself.  Customers value the nail holes, cracks, variable colors of grain in the red and its rarity.

Many of these beams are used for accent as open beams in new homes without any refinishing.  The fact that it came from an old building is enough to warrant demand and High prices.

The high prices are directly attributable to the Rarity of Heart Pine and its being difficult to machine.  Its uses today are mostly in flooring and exposed ornamental beams.

That's kinda it in a nutshell.

[biziedizie]

  Harold I want....no I need.....no I just have to have a piece of that wood I just need a little of it to make a wooden pen out of it. If you send me  5 blanks that are 6" long and about 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" I will make two pens out of them and I will send you one of them 8) If the wood is dry enough it would make a very cool pen

   Steve

[Jeff]

You must have big nuts.

DanG that dont sound right. :D  Great post Tom

[Texas Ranger]

Humm, a pen made of fat pine could be used for an emergency road side flare.

[biziedizie]

  Don is this wood still a fire hazard even when it's dry??? I have never heard of and have never used it :P It sure looks pretty though

  Tom that was an interesting read

   Steve (very confused at the moment :)

[Fla._Deadheader]

   That was one fine piece of Journalism, Tom.
   Diz, we had a wavy piece of that log settin in the shop when the customer came to pick up his 2 boards. He spotted it and said, "that's mine too, right"??? Ed let him have it. >:( >:(  The DEAL was, I want 2 boards : :
  BUT, we have some at the camp. I will send ya a stick, BUT, I AIN'T cuttin it  ;D ;) :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Norm]

Thanks for the excellent post Tom. I had read about Heart Pine but was never sure just exactly what it was and why it commanded such high prices. Pine around here is real junky wood and is very seldom used. We have very little of it that grows here as we don't seem to have the right climate for it.

What kind of prices does it bring down there for say 4quarters a bd ft. Probably can't afford to do it but I think it would look great in my den as flooring.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Norm, we sell it for $4.00 bd/ft, air dried to 12% and rough sawn. Dressed 4 sides with t&g will start at $6.00 and go to 9.50 bd/ft. That's for 4" nominal width.

  A 12" board can go as high as $23.10 bd/ft. That is ROUGH sawn FAS, Select is $16.99 for the same size.???

  Want to see finished stuff, go to www.heartpine.com. There are old photos there, also, of some of the Cypress we are trying to find. BIG stuff  
  DanG, now I gotta figger how to post a link  ;D

[Jeff]

They must make some bucks Harold. That looks like about a 10,000 dollar website.

[woodhaven]

Jeff,
I don't mean to offend anyone about my swamp remarks.
It's just that FDH is always making remarks about
the swamp and his alligators. To me it"s memories
of my growing up years. I take great pride in growing
up on the banks of what is now considered one of the
countrys natural wonders. "THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP".
As a boy for fun in the daytime we would swing from
the vines in the swamp as big around as your leg
thinking I was Tarzan and at night sit on the front
porch and listen to the bears eating corn in the feild.
I didn't find out untill moving to town in my teens
that a rug rat was your kids I was always called a
swamp rat. Even now in latter years when looking for
property to build on when I found what I wanted the back
property line is on a swamp. And so I am right at home.
Maybe now you can see why I make swamp remarks so easy.
It sure means no disrespect just the opposite it's my roots.
We also have a few alligators in there along with about
every plant, fish, bird, animal, tree oh well you name
it and it's in that swamp. Things have changed through
the years. It now has roads and paths for the tourist.
That "SWAMP" is one of the most beautiful places you could
ever visit if you want to see one of everything in the same
day. I notice that FDH speaks of alligators getting in
someones yard well around here it's mostly bears from
the swamp. Animal control is forever having to tranqualize
a bear in someones yard tree to carry him back to the swamp.
These guys will walk out of the swamp and right into a fully
residential neighborhood.

So yea,
I can say what I want about the swamp. Thats where I came from.

[Jeff]

I wish I had a swamp.

[Tom]

what do you call that where the cabin is?  I thought everybody had a swamp. :-/ :D

[Jeff]

Its not a swamp. Tag alder swamps dont count. Cedar swamps do.

[Bro. Noble]

Well,  I'm not sure I would want to live in a swamp,  but I sure miss Pogo :D

[Tom]

That's the Okeefenokee, Noble.  Pogo still exists.  We just don't make  him get out in the world to make a living anymore so you don't hear about  him. :D

[woodhaven]

If you guys want to see some pretty stuff. Just do a search for  THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP and look at some of the pictures you will find.
                         Swamp Rat

[Tom]

Yep, my Grandparents always liked the Dismal.  When we were traveling that far up north they would slow down and we would take note of where we were. and look at the scenery.  This was usually accompanied by an overly repeated dissertation on Francis Marion too. :D

[dail_h]

   Hey Woodhaven,
   Which side of the swamp you on?I'm southeast,we most neighbors i spose.

[woodhaven]

Yea Dail,
I talked to you a while back. I am just North of the Va. Line we are only about 50 miles apart.

[woodhaven]

Dail, Tom, FDH & Me
We all need to button down the hatches it looks like with that Storm hidding this way. 160 mph wind today.

[Jeff]

Yikes!  Keep us informed. Better yet come on up for a vacation and get away from the ole girl. We'll be here til saturday!

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Looks like Tom and I will be fine, but, all y'all along the Carolina Coast and North, better start packing .  : : Stay alert and be safe. Good Luck ;)

[woodhaven]

Thanks Jeff,
Leave your back door open. Just in case.

[Den Socling]

Fla_D,

I knew that, if you sent the professor over here, he was going to find you all flawed!  :D

den

http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/sawdry.pl?read=286544

[Jeff]

So yer all confused eh?  :D

[Fla._Deadheader]

   Den, will I never learn : : The great Dr. straightened Tom out a while back, too. Seems us Dummies over here Don'T know squat  
   Heavy Pitch deposits??? ???  In the whole DanG tree ??? ???
   Someday, we gotta take the great DR. out behind the wood shed. I thought that I showed a good example of extreme Heart Pine. Tom did a great dissertation on the Heart Pine as a whole. What are we missing ??? ??? : : : Maybe he didn't read the WHOLE title : :
 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[woodhaven]

FD,
You ain't missing nothing but that bird is..I think he responds to post just to disagree. Doesn't matter if he is right or wrong. I hardly ever go there just because of him. Really gets under my skin.

[Tom]

I don't feel confused :-/

Actually, he's right. Heart pine has nothing to do with the amount of pitch in it.  But, the reality is that there is pitch in Heart pine.  Sometimes there is a lot of pitch. :

One line, very specific, point blank answers may be accurate but they don't give anyone a broad picture of what the situation may be.  Nor do they encourage conversation, nor do they provide the opportunity for anyone to broaden their horizons.

It's also a fact that the Twin Towers fell down on Sept. 11th, two years ago.  A fellow that doesn't want to be wrong can stop there.  A fellow that would like to describe what happened may mention the Pentagon, even though it had nothing to do with the Twin Towers.  There were also planes involved and hi-jackers who were terrorists and terrorist organizations and Afghanistan and fire and heat and corruption of steel  and lots of other things that make the reader more aware and make the story more interesting.  

Neither is wrong, but the second is more enlightening.

I hate it when I ask my wife, "what's for supper?" And, she says, "food".

Dr. Gene is no idiot.  I've learned a fair amount from his posts in the past.  I've even studied in other places to make sure that I understood what he said. Sometimes I've felt he wasn't right  To most of his answers I want to ask "why". The difference in there and here is that he could feel free to write a book here if wanted and satisfy the "whys" and encourage the readers to get involved and learn without their having to pry for the information.

The good thing about the Forestry Forum is that the intimidation has been removed and members here feel comfortable in expressing their beliefs, right or wrong, without being put down.  Not to say that there won't be a discussion and that there won't be a disagreement, but there has been no put-down to my knowledge.  I've know folks that can stop a conversation with two or three words because they don't leave it open for discussion.  Hopefully, not here.

As a matter of fact, most of the really argumentative confrontations here can take place on our Instant Message system where folks get a chance to cool down before they make their statements public.  That's cool, isn't it?

[Paul_H]

I thought that the Docs reply was thinly veiled pitchiness. >:(

[woodbeard]

So, Deadheader, if you market this wood, will you need a sales pitch or pitch sales? :

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Actually, a good pitch remover for your hands ???

[Jeff]

pitch pitch pitch all I hear is pitch.

[Jeff]

 ;D

[Tom]

What're you pitchin' about, Jeff?

[Percy]

I guess a young pine tree without hardly any heartwood would be a sonofapitch...ya???........sorry  heh ;D

[Fla._Deadheader]

Percy, what if it's a young female tree??? ???

[AndyB]

FDH

Sorry to butt in but would that possibly be a bitchofapitch??? :-/

[Percy]

FDH

Sorry to butt in but would that possibly be a bitchofapitch??? :-/

:D :D :DThx fo da hep Andy

[Texas Ranger]

biz, fat pine is a hazard regardless of its age, and a finish will not stick to it, for long.  I made a country table for a lady out of fat pine found in a one hundred year old home, the beams underneath were solid fat pine.  I used the scraps and sawdust as starter in my franklyn stove in my shop, Cleaned the surfact with turpintine and used shellac for a finish.  Hope it stays.

[biziedizie]

  Don will this stuff work on a lathe or will it catch fire???

  Fla even if I can't make a pen out of this cuz it will be a fire hazard I would still like a piece if it's not too much trouble. We have a wood working guild that my dad belongs to and he brings stuff to the shop that's very interesting and some of the wood is very cool. I'm sure he would like to show the guys at the meetings a sample of what you have
  He has this one wood that if you breath the dust while it's on the lathe it can just about kill you but you can rub your hands on it all day long and nothing happens to ya.


     Steve

[woodhaven]

FD,
When you send me the 200 sample boards PLEASE clean off the pitch before mailing.
Thanks

[Don P]

 
I have blown the door off a stove with lighter knot  . I'd swear it was doing the Charleston before it let go :D.
This is a chunk of our most common variety of heart pine. Less resinous but still very much old growth heart, this tree would have been harvested in the 1840's or so and has the distinct heart pine smell. It was horizontal, pegged to the log wall as a ledger, supporting the second floor joists.

[Tom]

Man!  That's pretty, all warm and cozy looking.

[billbobtlh]

I had a letter opener carved out of fat pine. It looked like damascus  the way it was carved. I think one of my sons burned it. I keep thinking about carving another.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

It is good to know that there is at least something that a chainsaw mill can handle at a reasonably comparable speed to a band mill, namely handling real, solid-resin heartwood Longleaf Southern Yellow Pine.

A week ago I used my Alaskan frame and Stihl 090 to cut a 26' long Long leaf into thick slabs.   The log ran from about 29" at the butt, down to about 20" on the small end.  In order to cut it, I rigged a dispenser to run a mix of Pine Sol and water at a ratio of about 1 pint per gallon of water.   The reservoir was a two gallon household liquid laundry detergent container.  I made a saddle to hold the container which could sit on the "thickness rails" of the Alaskan.  
 :P
There simply was no way to cut more than eight inches without this water flow - not a drip, I mean a steady stream of liquid - about a gallon per run down the log.  This tree had only 12" of pure heart inside.  Even so, this homemade reservoir is the only thing that made ripping the resinous wood possible.  I had rather cut a 30" Live Oak, than one of these!    >:(From now on,  I will probably use this reservoir (in addition to the extra oil normally used by means of an aux. oiler) to cut all large trees.   The chain and bar stayed cool, and, boy was that chain CLEAN !
Phil L.   SMELLIN' GOOOOOD ! 8)

[Fla._Deadheader]

  
   :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

  Phil, how many feet per minute were ya travelin ??? ;D ;D ;D

  Where's the pics ??? ???  ;D ;D

  I can't POSSIBLY imagine doin that    You definitely da man 8) 8) 8) ;D ;D

[woodchip]

Mix about a cup fo pine oil to 5 gallons of water and a sharp blade No Problem.

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Let's see, Fla....

Was I going feet per minute on that log,...

or was it minutes per foot?  Let's just say it was mighty slowwwww! :(    But I'm much better, now. ;D

Phil L.

[Fla._Deadheader]

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  Yeah, Phil ;D ;D ;D ;D

[ARKANSAWYER]

  This is old heart pine,

  This is new heart pine,

   The old trees had alot tighter grain and due to time has turned more red.  The new heart pine is a bit more yellow and the grain is more open.  Both gum up your blades and can be hard to cut.
ARKANSAWYER

[Tobacco Plug]

Good pix of the heart pine, Arky.  A few years ago I cut three old longleaf pines to quartersaw.  Was going to have them T&G for my parlor floor.  Anyway, the trees all had red heart and the hollow and rot ran about 12 to 18 feet up.  One tree had bees in it.  I counted rings and came up to 110, 107, and 125 before hitting the red heart.  These trees had marks on them showing where they had been tapped for their sap years ago.  So, I sawed the logs and stacked and stickered the wood where I cut the logs (it was my land) and locked the gate.  A few months later, development began on a new county airport.  I came out to check on my lumber and found that most of it was missing.  Yes, I was hot!  Later I was checking out the work on the new airport and found several picnic tables made from what?  Yep, my quartersawn heart pine!  They were in rough shape then and so I couldn't salvage any of the wood.  Of course I couldn't prove who did it, as the tables were on county land and I had no way to know if it was construction workers who took the wood, or police at their firing range adjacent to my land and the new airport, or people riding horses and four wheelers around all the newly cleared airport land.  No matter who did it, it cost me my pretty parlor floor.  It sounds naive, but I thought the lumber was pretty secure sitting in the woods behind a locked gate a quarter mile off the state road.  That is the only time anyone has ever stolen my lumber, knock wood.  I sure hated to see my wood wasted on picnic tables.

[Tom]

To many, a board is just another board and you weren't using them anyway.  Besides, nobody told them they couldn't cross that fence. :-/

I had a canoe stolen from a platform I had built, chest high in a group of trees even before I built my dock.  They would have had to be just walking the woods or they came across 180 feet of marsh. Then I built the dock and some low-life stole my sons cane poles out from under the land side of the 180 foot dock.  The world is full of inconsiderates.

Just think how happy you made somebody. :D

[ohsoloco]

They probably talked about how pretty that heart pine was every time they ate lunch  :

[Fla._Deadheader]

  How often do ya reckon they STUCK to it while sittin??? :D

[Tobacco Plug]

How often do ya reckon they STUCK to it while sittin??? :D

Thanks for the laugh FDH!  That really made my day. 8)

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Yea, I bet some ole fat boy sit down on a bench on a hot summer day and when he got up so did the bench. ;D ;D  Then when he put his arm out the window of the truck on the way home he could not get it loose. :D :D
  Nothing is safe left out in the woods unless you are around to guard it.  Any one who would steal a cane pole is a real low life.
  I like that good heart pine as the trimmings start a fire most quick.
ARKANSAWYER

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Since I am foolish enough to do chain saw milling ( as you have already noticed), I normally cut large.

Before I was really convinced of the fact that people will steal anything "not nailed down",  I had cut a 32" Sweet Gum along a roadside widening project.   The slabs were over nine feet long, by 3-1/4" thick, ranging from 29 to 32" wide!  Weight? Maybe 300lbs to 325 each?   The intent?   Table tops and desk tops.

You guessed it!   Before I could get back after a couple rainy days to get 'em, they got ... GOT!   What makes it worse is that six months later a friend said, "Oh, I saw a couple of guys loading those and thought they were helping you."
Sheeesh! :'(  Yep, they help me a lot!
Phil L.

[AtLast]

 :-[...OK...OK.....ummmmm....what IS " heart pine" n e way  :-/

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Atlast, surely ya read this page??? ???  Arky posted some fine pics, about 9 posts up from this one ??? ??? ;D

[Tom]

Heart Pine

Heart Pine is the heart wood of a pine tree. Nothing more and nothing less. It carries connotations of age, history, virgin lumber, resin impregnation, and other subjects but it is really just the heart wood of the pine tree. When a tree grows, it puts on girth and those cells never go up as the tree gets taller. They stay right where they were created and are created in the cambium layer of the tree. As the Cambium layer puts down a new layer of cells it creates the rings of the tree based on what part of the year the cells were laid. The sapwood of the tree is alive. It passes food to the rest of the tree. As years go by, for some reason, the cells die and that forms the heart wood. They still will carry liquids but aren't alive and they begin to harden. They will provide the tree with structural stability. As they grow older, the pine heart cells are sealed with resin and even the fluid movement is curtailed. The resin crystallizes and that is the image people have of Heart Pine. The Heart wood grows darker in color as it ages, leaning toward reddish Brown. The crystallized resin causes the wood to appear glass-like. It is a comfortable, warm looking wood but, difficult to machine and finish because of the resins.


Southern Yellow Pine

Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) is the title given for four southern lumber trees. They are longleaf, slash, loblolly, and shortleaf pine.

Some call Longleaf pine, Southern Yellow pine and they aren't wrong but it isn't the only one. Longleaf is the premium SYP tree because of its pruning characteristics, its tendency to grow straight, tall and with minimum taper. It is also a slow grower so the rings tend to be tighter than the other pines.
Since controlled burning has almost been eliminated, Long leaf (which depends on fire to produce pure stands)is difficult to find in marketable quantity.

Slash is the next best tree but only because it is plantation grown and grows faster.

Loblolly is a very quick grower and produces wood with very wide growth rings unless crowded in thick plantings or maturing in canopied swamps.

Shortleaf is a lesser used pine and has tendencies in most areas to retain its limbs causing knotty wood.

These four Pine trees comprise the term Southern Yellow Pine. There is no distinction made between species once the trees are sawed. Education and familiarity can make one aware of the differences if you want to be selective, but, even then identification is almost impossible.

Heart pine can be the heart wood of any pine, not just Southern Yellow Pine. Being Southern Yellow Pine doesn't make the board Heart Pine either.  
  

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Like Tom says,   the heart of a pine tree is the heart of a pine tree, but Arkansawyer's picture shows the old good stuff. ;)

In about two weeks, I and my fine better half are making a trip to a place where there are still never-been-kissed examples of Long Leaf Pine, as well as Cypress.   The place is 30-minutes southeast of Columbia South Carolina - Congalee Swamp National Monument.  It is described as,  "the largest intact tract of old-growth flooplain forest in North America".   Many of the trees are record holders for size.

Only one problem:   No chainsaws allowed. :-/
Phil L.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Bet they allow CAMERAS, hint,hint : :D :D :D :D :D