WOW! box elder is beautiful

[justallan1]

I had to take a couple box elder trees out of the way this afternoon, so I sawed them up. I'm very glad I did. I had asked about it before and looked it up on the net, but didn't come up with any pictures like these.
When I took the chainsaw to them these things bled so bad I half wanted to check and see if it wasn't me!
Now I have to figure out what to do with them.
Allan

 

[Jeff]

You must not have searched here on the forum. There are dozens of photos in the gallery of flame box elder.

[justallan1]

No, I had just asked about cutting it and googled it.
Allan

 

[Jeff]

An example  8)

[justallan1]

WOW!!!  That stuff is simply beautiful.
I'll say this though, that stuff is pretty heavy! Much bigger than the couple little pieces I brought home and I wouldn't be able to pick them up.
Allan

[Jeff]

That was from Magicman's gallery. 

[justallan1]

Thanks

[Okrafarmer]

I don't think you have very many "heavy" tree species in Montana, if my research proves accurate. Maybe a few. If box elder is among your heaviest, you've got it pretty light.  ;)

Here we have things like oak, hickory, pecan, persimmon, black locust, and sycamore, to name a few, that you wonder how they could float sometimes, they're so heavy.

Nice find on the flame pattern, and I really like how the red doesn't fade as quickly as some of the special colors found in some other species.

[justallan1]

Okrafarmer, as far as this end of the state is concerned, I think you are correct. These were just small trees and I was picking them up by hand, but muck bigger and I won't be. That I know of we have pine, ash, juniper and box elder.
Allan

[Okrafarmer]

No cottonwoods?

[justallan1]

OOPS! yep, cottonwoods. The last ranch I worked for had bunches of them and from what I've seen of the lumber I wouldn't saw any without doing something different than the guy who did. Stickered good and dried that stuff cracks horribly, and don't try using any green, it sure seemed like it grew another few inches by the way it would bow.
I'm not saying it's bad would, I just don't a thing about it.
Allan

[RexBandit]

A lot of the old barns around were I live were built out of green cottonwood. There would usually be several guys working on them. One or two sawing and two or three nailing up the boards as fast as they come off the mill.

[ND rancher]

Allan, Cottonwood is good if used right. Nail it up and cover it with tin or siding and it will last forever. When I remodeled our 1917 house (Sears) Grampa had  a mill and if they were short on boards they used cottonwood. It took a good blade to cut or drill any of those boards.In the 70's, I built a feed shed out of cottonwood, 2x and boards and tin. Took it down in the 90's and the wood looked the same as the day it was put up. Those planks you talked about probably were out of trees that had shakes, cant make lumber from those.