Recovered (ancient) buried logs

[Puka]

Anybody had any experience with timber from above source?We have ancient kauri available; looks to be good quality but is up to 45000 years old!Has been buried in swamps in an oxygen free enviroment.Felled by natural disasters. Even the leaves are preserved perfectly.Kinda nice to use something like that in ones boat.
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/texture/woodboard/Kauri_NZ_Swamp.jpg
http://www.daviesfurniture.co.nz//files/images/Andrew%5Fby%5FLge%5FLog%5F2358949968.jpg

[ 03-26-2005, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: Puka ]

[John E Hardiman]

Submerged/recovered timbers have been used for years. "Sinker" logs are the perfered material for some applications such as bushings.

[Puka]

So, there shouldn't be a problem using it as hull planking?

[John E Hardiman]

Most like it has soaked up the soil over the years so it will dull tools quickly. But as long as it has no rot and was maintained in the proper moisture content (i.e. the old log ponds that every shipyard used to have), it should be good.

Bob Smalser? Opinion?

[Stiletto]

Puka , there is quite a lot of that kauri up here in Northland . I had asked the same question a few years ago, the reply was that it is suitable for furniture or interior use. I dont think there was neccesarily any scientific backing to that claim.
I think there would be at least some history of a few boats built out of it by now if it was ok, as it has been available for several years. The resistance to using it may be purely prejudice.

The Kauri Kingdom (the place that makes and sells a lot of swamp kauri products) is not far from where I live . I can get in touch with them and ask their opinion if you like.
Of course they may want to see it all going into furniture for rich tourists, one never knows. :rolleyes:

[Puka]

Giday Stiletto! Thanks for your offer.
Funny, I gained that impression too, quizzing the various suppliers.A certain reluctance to commit themselves.Like you say, it may be self interest.
Nelson, from Nelson Kaihu Kauri,gave a rational summary. Check the age, density/mc,colour and, the acidity of the swamp it came from.He said you can usually tell from this the degradation of the cellulose, ligni(?) & gum leach, but there are suitable grades.He has some current as well but it is twice the price. He favoured the 3000yr (Kaiwi) as opposed the 18kyrs from Waikato,(supposed felled by Taupo eruption) or the 45kyrs from the far North.Geez, who knows what knocked those over??

Last resort I guess I can go for current.(<200Yr old!)
Although, the mind boggles; I could have a "new" bottom older than the pyramids!

That will inspire confidence in my crew.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Some of that stuff is visually stunning, it would be a crime to plank a hull with it.
Langcaster guitars (http://www.langcaster.com/making-guitars.html)

[Bob Smalser]

Dr Jagels in WB did a column on it a while back and calls it a mixed bag, strength-wise. That was based on USDA structural testing of the products of commercial reclaimers of sinkers in Michigan.

My experience is limited to Doug Fir and WRC coming out of beaver ponds....here that wood can be up to 10,000 years old depending on the age of the pond....and I've had nothing but great results with it.

If it looks, smells and feels good....it is good. I wouldn't waste this gold in a barn beam, and it's not bending stock...but in planking or a keel or other large boat timber it is as perfect as it gets.

Even if waterlogged, it is already seasoned so it dries in half the time of green wood.

All the wood below came from sinkers in a pond old enough for the original beaver dam to have 40' of silt in front of it....probably close to 10,000 years old:

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/2595357/29566094.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/4518261/57153465.jpg

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/4664832/55976553.jpg

PS:

I have one WRC log still down there in 6' of water buried in the silt that's 120' long and 6 feet in diameter with almost zero taper over its length. Figure out how to get that monster out of there and I'll split the wood with you. ;)

[ 03-26-2005, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Mrleft8]

Sky hook? :D

[Puka]

I prefer to "tune" my boat ;) Besides it would be somewhat difficult to plank a boat in that "character" root stock.
Thanks Bob. I like the, touch, feel,smell,rub,saw-----taste.(?)
If its good enough for you, its sure good enough for me.
Love the tight straight grain WRC.

[ 03-26-2005, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Puka ]

[Stiletto]

As an aside, when I lived in the Hokianga region of Northland I had a mate who got several sinkers out of the harbour tributaries that were left over from the exploitative sawmilling days.

He got Rimu(red pine) and Kahikatea( white pine), never a Kauri, as even a hundred years ago they were valuable enough to be worth the effort of recovery.

[Bob Smalser]

There is a flip side to this.

Rodger Morris over at Lake Union Drydock reported that every stick of salvaged Interior/Mountain Doug Fir from the Mount St Helens eruption failed in marine use.

These were blowdowns that lay in place in the woods for from one to several years before loggers went in and recovered them.

He may chime in, but as I recall Mr Morris figured they were full of fungus, even tho they didn't look like it coming from the mill. When you figure the amount of expensive work that went into using it only to have to rip it out an redo it later you can imagine he was quite upset about it.

They weren't from the "zero oxygen" conditions advertised for your buried logs....but it's something to think about if the marketing is less than truthful.

[ 03-27-2005, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[BFR]

I've found swamp kauri to be brittle although saying that the kauri i got for my boat came out of paeroa 12mm thick 300mm wide and 6.1 long all quater sawn.... this stuff is wind fall trees that have been down like 100years the timber is wondefull stuff nothing like swamp more like fresh or recycled.

[Puka]

I have settled for recent Kauri. All the swamp stock did not come up to par. It did seem brittle.

Ah well, so much for building in history.

[WindHawk]

Start saving your milk jugs Bob, you'll get 'er up... eventually.

I believe that the only way you can get Bird's Eye Maple anymore is to use "rescued" logs. They don't have the patience to let 'em grow that long now.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Bob, if you can fish some chains or increasingly larger lines under both ends of that log, then you should be able to bring it up with inflatable salvors lift bags.

You can rent the bags or borrow them (perhaps you can arrange some kind of a swap with the outfit you borrow them from).

Once it's up, you can lift the log-butt over the pond's edge by rigging up a tripod (three stout logs about 14 feet long, criss-crossed and well chained together at the top) and running your chain (or anchor line) thru a pulley hanging from that and going from there to your truck.

Alan

[Puka]

At 6' diam and 120' long @ 50lbs/cuft (approx) thats 75ton.I'll bring my scuba gear if you bring an underwater chainsaw. :D
(Left out a 6.25)!

[ 03-30-2005, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: Puka ]

[Donn]

Temporarily drain the pond. Let it get dry enough to get some equipment in there, and dig the critter out. Then refill the pond.

[Bob Smalser]

Haven't found a hydraulic or other chainsaw suitable for underwater use that'll take a bar 40" long.

My usual method is to choker them to 55gal drums with a come-along....ratcheting the drums beneath the surface at low water....then wait for the rainy season to break them loose so they can be winched in.

That monster and lesser monsters like it will have to be bucked under water. Any log that waterlogs and sinks has a Specific Gravity greater than 1.0 and is much, much heavier than whut the USDA tables say...

...it's closer to 50 ton than 12....not including the suction of the silt.

The 5-acre pond the big logs are in is in a glacier depression....I'd have to run the siphons 100yds downstream to attain an elevation low enuf to drain the pond. Plus the pond is in trust as a Coho salmon nursery...which I get subsidized for. Draining would have to be by pumping and ain't gonna happen easily.

[ 03-30-2005, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Alan D. Hyde]

What's wrong with salvors inflatable lift bags, Bob???

They're used to lift ships which weigh far more than does your log...

Alan

[Bob Smalser]

I'll have to look into those, Alan. Thanks.

[skuthorp]

Almost all Huon Pine available these days, apart from salvaged timber, is from old logs retrieved from the bottom of lakes and harbours in Tasmania I understand. Water penetrates very little into the timber, some of the logs were felled by convicts over 100 years ago, some are considererably older.

[skuthorp]

Almost all Huon Pine available these days, apart from salvaged timber, is from old logs retrieved from the bottom of lakes and harbours in Tasmania I understand. Water penetrates very little into the timber, some of the logs were felled by convicts over 100 years ago, some are considererably older.
http://www.huonpiner.com/

[ 03-30-2005, 09:31 PM: Message edited by: skuthorp ]

[pipefitter]

Anyone here have any experience with the sinker cypress logs? Reason I ask is because I know a man that was a very good boatbuilder and he swore by old growth cypress (not sinker logs but the trees they used to get before the ban.According to him,the new stuff they use for fences and spas is junk compared to the old. Takes hundreds/thousands of years to develop the cypresine (in his words "rosin"). He claimed nothing really wants to eat it such as termites and other critters. I have had the pleasure of trying to drive a nail in it on older houses and you arent going far without a pilot hole. I was going to buy some for the frames of my boat but I didnt like the idea of ordering sight unseen. Nor was I sure about the quality of logs submerged for a couple hundred years.
Also read somewhere that there is dock pilings made of cypress in Savanah GA. that have been there since the 1700's
Would a sinker log from an already highly rot resistant species make a difference in quality of sinker logs?

[ 03-31-2005, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: pipefitter ]

[Bob Smalser]

They have to be a rot resistant species to survive at all submerged.

The alder, maple, madrone, etc flooded when the beavers dammed that stream are all now part of the 4' of humus at the bottom of the pond.

Our WRC is botanically a cypress related to your Baldcypress....and I imagine they behave similarly.

Wood becomes brittle when its lignin....the glue holding the cellulose fibers together....deteriorates. Deterioration can be caused by fungus, UV light, disease, or too much heat.

Submerged wood doesn't get enough oxygen for fungus to develop, so it the log was healthy when submerged, it it healthy now except for the first inch or so on the bark side.

Yesterday I made another set of 9' oars from sinker WRC using basswood scantlings....and those long oars are just as resilient and flexible as they would be if made from new wood. And also likely overstrong....I could have just as well used spruce scantlings with that tight-grained, old-growth wood.

[ 03-31-2005, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]