Sugarberry

[Sixacresand]

My cousin ask me about milling a sugarberry tree.  I have never heard of it but read that it is plentiful in the SouthEast to Texas and good for furniture building.  Anyone have any experience with it?

[WDH]

It is a first cousin to hackberry.  In fact, many Dendrologists do not try to separate sugarberry from hackberry.  One of the few ways to tell them apart is the length of the peduncle (the stem on a fruit, like a petiole on a leaf).  The wood is ring porous with an open grain like oak and ash.  Actually, very pretty.  The latewood pores are arranged in wavy bands giving the grain a very unique appearance.  It is in the elm family and has spiral grain like sweetgum, blackgum, elm, and sycamore.  It can be difficult to dry without twist and warp.  It will be more stable if you quartersaw the log if it is big enough.  If not big enough, think about sawing it 5/4 so that it will be easier to plane to 3/4" finished thickness.

[Sixacresand]

Thanks for the info, Danny.  I look forward to milling some.  My cousin's interest is obtaining thick boards stock for lathe/bowl turning.  That unique spiral grain may be his goal. 

[LeeB]

Now is a good time of the year if he wants the wood to be white. It blue stains really quickly. It also spaults nicely but can turn from spault to rot in a real hurry. Turns well. I actually madce a couple of sledge hammer handles out of it. Been using the hammers for years now.

[WDH]

Lee is on the money.  It will gray stain in no time at all with high humidity, and we have had high humidity the last few days.  You can put a box fan blowing parallel to the stack (not directly into the stack) and this will assure more air flow through the layers and hopefully help prevent the gray stain from being so bad.  The gray stain will be an ugly gray blotchiness.