I may cry

[113bob]

Hi Russell,
I'm the guy who bought 4 pieces of your lumber. I recently moved on to spars (since my ballast keel casting has been much delayed by COVID 19) and thought I'd share some pics.
The material I got from you is among the nicest I've ever had the pleasure to work with. I still have one full stick left and some healthy sized offcuts. The first two pix show the main boom, gaff and jib boom for a Joel White Flatfish and the mast, yard and boom for a gunter rigged Acorn dinghy (Iain Oughtred). The third pic is a close up of an offcut I'll use for a mast step crutch for trailering the Flatfish with her spars. It's just under 3-1/2" in diameter and is included to show off the impressive ring count.
Just for yucks, I sent a chunk of the wood off to the USDA Forest Products Lab Center for Wood Anatomy Research in Madison WI. It seems as a taxpayer, one is entitled to three sample identifications per year for free (!) Sorry I don't have the link handy, but if you google "wood sample analysis" it comes right up. I don't even think it took a week to get the results.
They identified the sample as "Pseudotsuga sp." - aka Douglas Fir. So now we know. As I said above beautiful material and a pleasure to work with.
Thanks again,
Bob

IMG_6470 resize 2.jpgIMG_6471 (2) resize.jpgIMG_6473 resize.jpg

[Canoeyawl]

How sweet. I have had Douglas Fir as light as Spruce and as heavy as Oak. If you are making spars select carefully.
It is going to turn that wonderful golden brown in a few years. Spruce does just the opposite, it bleaches white.

[johngsandusky]

Nice update!

[rregge]

Thanks for the update. It looks great

It really does work well.

I really did not think it was Douglas Fir...I am sorry about that.

There should be another update at some point.

The other sticks went to Jim Ledger

They really look nice

[bluedog225]

Nice. And welcome!

[sp_clark]

Here’s the link to the sample testing service 113bob mentioned:

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/c...dfactsheet.php

I’ve got some (at least what I think might be) red pine 8x12’s salvaged from a barracks demolished about 1950 north of Chicago on L. Michigan. Guy used ‘em for sills for a house he built ~ 45 miles due west. I bought the place in ‘77, rebuilt what he considered to be a foundation in ‘87, thought one of the two 16’-ers worth saving. Almost clear, maybe 6-8 rings per inch. Likely felled up in N. Wisconsin 90 or more years ago. I want to get a definitive answer about my supposition before trying to resaw around the 20d spikes he’d toenailed the 4x6 joists on with....