Cutting Mulberry

[WDH]

I felled a maple last year, and in the process of falling, it knocked over a small mulberry tree as collateral damage.  So, one year later, I decided to saw the small mulberry as I have never sawn any before.  At least to me, the wood was exceptionally beautiful even though the boards are small.   

What have been others experience sawing and drying mulberry and using the wood for projects?   I have never made anything from mulberry, at least not yet!

[metalspinner]

I like mulberry alot, though I have not made large projects with it.  Watchout when finishing, though.  Water and waterbased finishes will make the yellow color "run".  This was a hard earned lesson when finishing these stools...










Mulberry and osage boards look really similar.  The only way I can tell them apart is the water test.  I have a nice (18") mulberry log waiting to be sawn and will probably cut bowl blanks from it.

[KyTreeFarmer]

I have never worked any in the shop but sawed up one a couple months ago that made some beautiful boards. It had been on the ground for about 16 months and sawed very well.  Can't wait for them to dry!
KTF

[WDH]

Chris,

Run as in contaminate adjacent boards with yellow color?  Those stools are very unique.

KY,

That is an exceptional mulberry log, and it looks happy on the LT15!

[terrifictimbersllc]

[Norm]

I like mulberry but the darn stuff is a weed around us. Most grow in fence rows and spread out a huge crown. On the other hand it makes decent firewood and pretty sawboards if you can find a tree with a big enough trunk.

It dries fairly stable and isn't too bad to work with tool wise.

[Tom]

I didn't learn it until I had been sawing awhile, but Mulberry is used for making bows.  A fellow who made bows and had me sawing green ash was asking me where he could find mulberry, because he wanted to make stick bows out of it.  That's not a laminated bow, but rather one made from a sapling or limb in its natural form or scraped flat to a particular shape.

I couldn't believe that he had missed the weedy nature of the tree.  It's mingled with black willow in every low spot or roadside ditch around.

[WDH]

Same family as osage orange, a traditional bow wood, so stands to reason although I did not know know that mulberry was a good bow wood!  Thanks Tom.

[metalspinner]

Danny,
Yes, that's right. :(  The color bled off with water and discolored the adjacent board.  It is barely visible on the piece of ash to right of the mulberry strip.  That might make it a good candidate for a yellow dye, though.

[SwampDonkey]

You sure it wasn't the osage? Because the yellow in osage will come out in water.



[Source: Text of Wood Techn.]

Doesn't mention it for red mulberry, other than the yellow color of the wood.

[metalspinner]

Now you got me confused...

Let me check my source....

[metalspinner]

Talk about getting it backwards :

Yes, SD, osage is the one that bleeds.  Thanks for calling me on that. It won't keep me from getting all turned around on it in the future, though. : :-[

From Dodgyloner way back when...

It didn't occur to me before now, but the extractives in osage-orange are water-soluble, so your problems with the water-based poly aren't surprising.  That's actually a great way to separate the wood from mulberry or black locust: drop a few shavings in warm water, and if the water has a yellowish tinge, it's osage-orange.

[SwampDonkey]

That's alright metalspinner, a person couldn't even begin to know it all. But, that was a wood I had recalled several times looking up properties for and had also mentioned the dye properties of the wood. This textbook comes in handy and has more information not published in the Wood Handbook. My "Wood Bible" as I say. ;) I find this forum makes a person refresh or 'learn over' things he studied and never used since 20 years ago. ;D It's like a lot of things, if you don't use it, eventually it fades and then is lost from memory. That's unless your Marie-Lou Henner. ;)

[SPIKER]

Now I dont have 1st hand knowledge on this but was told that it makes one of the best smoking woods going. better than Apple according to some old co-workers who had some LARGE smoking outfits.   One guy had a hill side smoker that asked me to send him all I got of Apple 2nd to the Mulberry.  He made in the neighborhood of 500 ~ 1000 lbs a year in smoked meats and ran a side business doing it with his brother & step son, N intended of going full time when he retired.   (He retired after I left the company so not sure if he made it or not.)   He smoked Amish meats that he custom ground into summer sausages & mixed meats in his old milking parlor (all S.S. fixtures &  fully wash down place.)   I did get to eat some of the treats he made and yes it was VERY good but not sure what he had used for smoking those SAMPLES   8) 8)

We regularly had venison summer sausage due to the fact his brother had Fruit Tree Farm & practically unlimited deer permits.

Mark

[Don_Papenburg]

Mullberry makes a very good smoking wood . lots of young stuff ready year around  if you don't pull it out by the roots.

[tyb525]

I've cut firewood from it and a few bowl blanks with the chainsaw, but never milled any.

Around here it really only grow out in the open and along the wood's edge, it likes to make multiple stems and forks at about DBH height. They do get big though.

[5quarter]

WDH

 Like Norm, mulberry grows like a weed here...birds and deer spread the seeds everywhere. I cut alot of it both for BBQ and for lumber. Theres a fellow here in town who has a pro BBQ team and has a place down on the river called uncle Ernies BBQ. He's placed in nearly all the big competitions and uses alot of Mulberry. Not much to add on the lumber side, except that it is a really great cabinet wood...very hard, very stable. High rot resistance too...if you could get enough, it would make a fantastic deck. It darkens somewhat with exposure to air and will darken significantly with direct and regular sun exposure. Oh, and try not to edge off the sap wood...it doesn't really change color and if you can get a few boards with some sap on the edge, it makes a very nice contrast.

KYtreefarmer...very nice log. Most of mine are short trunked and bushy, but there are about a dozen or so out in the woods that have grown very straight and very tall and are between 16"and 20". They would make great lumber, but they are simply more valuable to me right where they are. something else about mulberry while I'm thinking of it...The only tree on my property that we really pick from is a very, very large old mulberry that despite its size, is still very healthy and bears the tastiest fruit. I've been told that old trees, while bearing less fruit, tend to bear higher quality fruit. I know its true for grapes and apples...I guess its true for mulberries as well.

Chet

[Kansas]

We see some mulberry down in the river bottom coming in as a secondary tree among the cottonwoods. Some of them are about big enough now to harvest. The wood does turn to nearly the color of walnut over time. Don't know for sure what you could use to keep that from happening. Also, I had a guy swear to me that the best smoking wood was osage orange. As pointed out, in the same family as mulberry.

[SwampDonkey]

It may be that a UV protectant can preserve it. I have used water based Varathane that preserves the color of woods. I don't have osage or mulbery to confirm.  ;)

[customsawyer]

WDH the next time you are over this way remind me to take you over to the old place I think there is a mulberry tree there that is about 40" dbh. Now I am not the tree wizard that you are so it could be something else.

[SwampDonkey]

That reminds me of mountain ash around here. Not because of the tree, but the size. Most native mountain ash are tall and skinny and no size in girth the amount to much. But we also have naturalized European ash and I found one that was more like a tree in it's girth, I believe it was handy to 12". It was growing ona  grown up pasture next to an alder patch. It has a silvery bark, that doesn't peel like yellow birch does. But, I bet I could fool someone with a log off one of them laying in the yard. We do see some yellow birch with silvery bark at times. The biggest giveaway would be the ring growth, they grow fast. ;D

You can tell the native ones from sticky buds. ;D

[WDH]

Jake,

I would like to see that tree.

[Kansas]

We do carry a little mulberry at the mill. Our display boards with different woods has the mulberry virtually the color of walnut, with osage orange not far behind. All we put on the display boards over the wood was a semi gloss.  Has anyone here been able to preserve the natural color of mulberry or osage? Reason I am asking is I have had customers use it once in awhile, and ask about it. I don't know what to tell them. I would promote mulberry more if I could tell them how to keep the color.

[5quarter]

Kansas,

   I'm no expert, but I've been trying to figure out the same thing. as far as I can tell, boards with high air flow and sun exposure will turn the color of plum pudding in a month or two...lumber stacked on the north side of my building with only diffuse sunlight exposure was cosiderably lighter.  by contrast, lumber dried in the relative darkness of my machine shed turned only a light yellowish orange after about 8 months. And just recently, I found a 3"x8"x3' block of mulberry in my heated shop which I think I cut over 2 years ago. still bright yellow. I just cut 2 more logs last week and stickered them in my shop. we'll see what happens in a few months. I suspect that if you can dry it fast and keep it in a dark place, it may greatly slow down the process, but I don't know if you can ever completely stop it. if I had a kiln, I might try drying it on a schedual similar to hard maple, but I am just speculating now. Maybe Den will read this and weigh in on the subject.

Chet

[SwampDonkey]

Try a UV blocker based finish. I use "Cystal Clear Waterbourne Diamond Wood Finish" by Varathane. It does not mention UV protection, but the finish is clear, low odor, dries fast (takes a week to cure hard though) and does not yellow. Try some as a test. I know the wood I've used it on has not darkened any for 3 or 4 years now. Even cherry, a wood that will darken with age is still the same color. It will have a wet look. I can still see the gray streaks and the pink pigments in my butternut. 8)



Butternut has a natural luster, walnut doesn't.