Leylandii for woodworking?

[sime42]

So I took down a sizeable Leylandii yesterday. Probably about 3ft diameter at chest height. I'm just wondering if it's worth saving any of the timber for some kind of woodworking. It was just destined to be logs, but after bucking it up and splitting a bit it looks too nice to just burn. Crap firewood anyway. Lovely straight grain and highly contrasting growth rings. As it's in a back garden with no access I had to cut it into manageable chunks for handling, nothing long enough to mill, so it'll be for turning or carving etc.

 

Anyone got any experience of working with Leylandii?

[rapalaman]

No experience working with but brilliant firewood once seasoned properly 👍

[sime42]

No experience working with but brilliant firewood once seasoned properly [emoji106]

You think? I'm not a fan. It lights easily and burns hot certainly, but doesn't last nearly long enough. I get fed up with constantly having to feed the wood burner.

[Squaredy]

It is worth remembering that Leylandii is in the Cedar family - which is why the foliage looks so similar to Western Red Cedar.

 

So yes it is excellent timber, biggest problem being that it is generally very knotty.  As your tree is cut short it could be of interest to wood carvers

[tree_beard]

6 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

It is worth remembering that Leylandii is in the Cedar family - which is why the foliage looks so similar to Western Red Cedar.

 

So yes it is excellent timber, biggest problem being that it is generally very knotty.  As your tree is cut short it could be of interest to wood carvers

Cypress family for leylandii, and confusingly western red is not actually a true cedar, it's also a cypress. 

[Squaredy]

1 minute ago, tree_beard said:

Cypress family for leylandii, and confusingly western red is not actually a true cedar, it's also a cypress. 

Sorry I meant to say Cypress family same as WRC!

[Macpherson]

I milled two of them recently, or at least that's what I thought it was most likely to be, I'm not good at identifying the various types of these trees....

They had been stand alone trees in a garden and they'd had lower branches removed as they'd grown to give a view from the house, they were headed for the firewood pile but I managed to rescue them and was pleasantly surprised with the colour and figuring and got some very nice boards, so it will probably end up as garden furniture as it's fairly durable.

[arbwork]

brilliant underrated timber Leylandii   , creamy white and when exposed to sunlight and outside with age turns a silvery grey, is durable,  

[Macpherson]

38 minutes ago, arbwork said:

brilliant underrated timber Leylandii   , creamy white and when exposed to sunlight and outside with age turns a silvery grey, is durable,  

Yep, looking at my pics again I don't think it's Leylandii, too reddish.... can anyone suggest a more likely ID, cheers.

It had / has an unpleasant acrid smell if that helps.

[Squaredy]

18 minutes ago, Macpherson said:

Yep, looking at my pics again I don't think it's Leylandii, too reddish.... can anyone suggest a more likely ID, cheers.

It had / has an unpleasant acrid smell if that helps.

Western Red Cedar.  I would not describe the smell as unpleasant, otherwise it looks like a perfect fit.