A fabulous red gum eucalyptus floor for the fabulous Darlene

[mesquite buckeye]

Next project for my lovely wife. A new homemade floor to finish the old/new house. The house addition was started in 1992, just now approaching completion. Hardwood floors throughout the living area, which is the upstairs of my shop (about 750 sq ft). We have recycled maple flooring from an old handball court in the two bedrooms and what we call the mezzanine level, which is sort of a half of a half of a third floor. More work to finish up there including the guardrail and two ladder stairs.

Anyway, we have a couple of thousand board feet of red gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) lumber that I cut from 4 trees in Tucson about the same time the house addition was started, so I think it is dry. ;D 8) 8) 8)

If you have never worked with red gum, it is the worst imaginable wood to attempt to dry. The wood is cross grained, highly figured and moves in every direction but straight when you dry it. It also collapses, cracks, warps, bows and cups, often in several directions in the same board. Great lumber for pretzel boards. That said, it is some of the most beautiful wood you will ever see, producing lumber with curly, quilted, and birdseye figure, often in the same piece of wood. The wood is heavy, hard and strong, and resists shock well. The wood is nearly impossible to work with hand tools, but can be machined easily with power tools. After the crazy movement during drying, the wood is reasonably stable in service. I think you could use it for tool handles. The wood is redwood red in color, with cream colored sapwood and frequent dark to black streaking. Some have gum pockets in them. An even bigger pain to work with, but often even more beautiful.

I had intitially thought to sell the lumber after I dried it, but essentially no takers. Another wood with a rep as junk that can be really special if used appropriately.

The 4/4 lumber has to be cut into short pieces in order to joint one side flat.

Here is the pile of cut up pieces ready to process. A lot of 20" wide boards had to be cut down to 3-4" wide to get a usable flat piece. :(

 

A tiny sample of the waste. Probably 1/3 or better.

 


A piece showing fairly typical collapse,movement and gum pockets.

 


My work setup for doing jointing on two faces.

 


A jointed piece showing quilted figure.

 

Some of the boards could not be sufficiently flatened without getting too thin, so I will incorporate this sawmill mark character into the finished floor. The wife actually likes the idea. ;D ;D ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[ron barnes]

That will certainly be a beautiful floor when you finish.

[mesquite buckeye]

Thanks. It is really pretty stuff. I forgot to mention that with age the wood gets streaks of gold in the heartwood. ;D

It took a good part of two days to get that pile in the shop done with the jointing. Probably about another 8 days work or so to get all of it through that step. Already had to hone the blades once on the jointer. May have to change them before I get through the stack. :-\

[mesquite buckeye]

Here are a couple more samples of what the wood looks like from off the jointer. ;D

  

 

[LeeB]

The pictures look simular to mesquite. Pretty stuff.

[rooster 58]

OOOOOOOOH, I LIKE IT!!!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

[thecfarm]

Sounds like a type of wood that does it all!! Drying and for looks wise.

[mesquite buckeye]

The pictures look simular to mesquite. Pretty stuff.

There are some superficial similarities in the look, although we rarely get quilted mesquite. Mesquite looks like it has gold flecks in it, while eucalyptus sort of has a general glow on the fancy stuff. Also, mesquite is quite brittle and eucalyptus is very tough. I have driven 4/4 boards into really hard ground with a 10 pound sledge hammer and most don't break. If I tried that with mesquite, I would have toothpicks. ;D :-\

[mesquite buckeye]

Sounds like a type of wood that does it all!! Drying and for looks wise.

OOOOOOOOH, I LIKE IT!!!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

;D 8) 8) 8)

[mesquite buckeye]

Some more pictures off the jointer. Of those 4 trees that I started with, one was full of gum pockets and very dark red when we cut it. Gooey stuff when fresh, looks like black crystals after it dries. Another tree was 40" at the base of the butt log, maybe 32 at the top, full of bird's eye. Most of that was quarter sawn 8/4 and is still sitting in the stack hoping to be something cool like guitars or pool cues. The other 2 trees had a combination of straight grain, curly and quilted figure.

Anyway, the piece on the right came from the bird's eye log as we were squaring it up to cut the 8/4 stuff. You can see what the bird's eyes look like just under the bark on the upper left of the piece.

The other 3 come from the gum pocket tree. Tons of waste with this tree and hard to use, but full of streaks, swirl and other figure. This one in particular gets gold streaks in it with age. Made a Japanese tea table for my daughter with this stuff over 10 years ago. It just keeps getting prettier with age.



 


;D 8) 8) 8)

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

... Made a Japanese tea table for my daughter with this stuff over 10 years ago. It just keeps getting prettier with age.

Now, ya know we're just gonna say "No pictures, didn't happen..."

Would love to see the tea table.

Herb

[tule peak timber]

Mesquite, Is this the species of Eucalyptus with the thick black crumbly bark ? How many square feet of flooring do you need ? Rob

[mesquite buckeye]

... Made a Japanese tea table for my daughter with this stuff over 10 years ago. It just keeps getting prettier with age.

Now, ya know we're just gonna say "No pictures, didn't happen..."

Would love to see the tea table.

Herb

I'll see if I can get one.

[mesquite buckeye]

Mesquite, Is this the species of Eucalyptus with the thick black crumbly bark ? How many square feet of flooring do you need ? Rob

edit: This is the one with bark that looks like sycamore and is quite cold hardy.

Somewhere around 350-400. I am almost halfway through the jointing. ;D

[tule peak timber]

I am set up to run short length flooring and you might want to consider blasting down the I - 10 with your wood in tow. We could knock out the run in a day..........Just a thought.

[mesquite buckeye]

A very good one. Unfortunately money is in shorter supply than time. When I get a big pile of short mesquite I may give you a call. ;D 8) 8) 8)

How short can you run? ??? ??? ???

[mesquite buckeye]

I looked you up. 6 hr drive. Not horrible. ;D

I could pick up some goodies in Temecula, I see it is close by. ;D

[tule peak timber]

Hi Mesquite,
I am not looking for short logs. What I am offering you is to take your eucalyptus material, dimension it, T&G it, run it through a sander so you have some flooring you can install when you get back home. I would not charge you for this and I think we could knock the whole thing out in a day. How are you planning on producing flooring from the blanks inthe photos supplied?.
Rob

[mesquite buckeye]

I have a wood shaper w tongue and groove cutters. Slow, but it works.

I was actually talking about mesquite flooring blanks, not logs.

You are very kind to offer to do this.  ;D

[tule peak timber]

let me know...

[mesquite buckeye]

Here is Athena's tea table.

  

 

The center area came from the log with the gum pockets, the quilted matched pieces from one of the other non-birds eye trees. We only had to dig through 1800 of the 2000 board feet of eucalyptus to find the boards she liked. :-\ >:( We do things like that for the women we love. : The center board was U shaped and had to be ripped into 4 or 5 strips, jointed, planed, then rematched to look like they were one board. Also had to dig out all the gum pockets, then fill with black epoxy. The live edges were on her list of demands.  :( I actually like it now that it is done. ;D 8) 8) 8)

I think she only had to wait a couple of years to get it.

Anyway, that center board was relatively uniformly dark red when the table was made. You can see it golding out. Also the sapwood has darkened a bit and the other heartwood has lightened. 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)


edit: I think the table was something like 12 or 13 years old at the time this photo was taken. Forgot to mention that.

[mesquite buckeye]

Couple more pretty pieces. The one on the left from the bird's eye log, big and thick enough for a door threshhold. ;D Two on the right from the gum pocket tree.

 

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

That's one sweet tea table (hmmm.... down in the deep South we use that table to serve some sweet ice tea...)

Herb

[mesquite buckeye]

They use it as a coffee table in the middle of their living room. ;D

And occasionally for some ice tea. ;D ;D ;D

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

WOW!