Uses for sycamore?

[waterbuoy]

Evening all

I'm heading south in a week to clear up three sycamore and a beech which my folks have had cut down in their garden - all very different from the ubiquitous spruce which plagues us here in Argyll.

 

One of the sycamore trunks is a steady 3-4ft diameter and would appear to lend itself to milling.  Any thoughts as to what it could be used for?  I know the grain is usually pretty dull but wondered if it might be suitable for anything other than firewood as there is plenty of that to be had from the other trees!

[openspaceman]

It is a useful white wood, softer than beech but does not taint food so was used for dairy goods, treen and bread boards. As a commercial timber it was used to clad inside railway passenger carriages.

 

It can have figure (fiddle back), when it becomes a valuable veneer.

 

Trouble is it needs milling soon after felling as it is very perishable and the ends suffer from staining, (cul de vache), sawdust must be blown off and boards initially stacked vertically

[Stere]

Noticed the way sawdust causes staining

 

The cows bottom?! 😏

 

Like that...

 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Stere

[openspaceman]

6 minutes ago, Stere said:

The cows bottom?! 😏

 for many years, having only heard the term from a polish veneer buyer I thought the term was cow's tail, queue de vache, until someone here corrected me to cow's a*se.

[Squaredy]

1 hour ago, waterbuoy said:

Evening all

I'm heading south in a week to clear up three sycamore and a beech which my folks have had cut down in their garden - all very different from the ubiquitous spruce which plagues us here in Argyll.

 

One of the sycamore trunks is a steady 3-4ft diameter and would appear to lend itself to milling.  Any thoughts as to what it could be used for?  I know the grain is usually pretty dull but wondered if it might be suitable for anything other than firewood as there is plenty of that to be had from the other trees!

Certainly a useful timber for indoor items.  Ideal for kitchen cupboards, serving boards, etc.

 

 Can be difficult to avoid staining this is true, but in my experience this does not stop it from selling.  If the logs are left for a while they can spalt but this is usually accompanied by some rot so may not be worth trying.

 

 Might be worth simply milling into large slabs and you will be into the right sort of size for dining tables.  And this is where sycamore really scores, as it is pretty stable compared to most uk hardwoods.  
 

Post some photos if you do mill it!

[waterbuoy]

Thanks all and yes, will do - if I manage to mill it.  I only have a Stihl 066 with a 36" bar (and ripping chain) but will see how I get on.  I suspect it will actually be smaller that the 4' my father has stated, but happy to be proven wrong.  If that is the case I'll bring it back north with me on the Ifor.

[Macpherson]

3 hours ago, waterbuoy said:

the ubiquitous spruce which plagues us here in Argyll.

 

Not just Argyll, it's a menace that creates a sterile environment in Scotland's FC Sitka environmental vandalism, thankfully the shyte around me was removed a few years ago and now we need to root out the self seeders that are trying to make a return in the ground that's been left to return to nature.

 

As for Sycamore, I'd go with what others have said and add that 'sticker stain' is the reason standing upright for a while, but also just making sure that any milled lumber is free of dust before it's stacked is really important.. ok, a few stained / or spalted boards can be interesting, but I personally like clean seasoned stuff to work with that has no signs of rot or staining and with some species this can be frustrating to achieve due to the time it lies stacked for before you even get a chance to evaluate it. 

 

Having said all that I'm just an amateur that learns with every cut I make👍

[ucoulddoit]

8 hours ago, waterbuoy said:

- if I manage to mill it.  I only have a Stihl 066 with a 36" bar (and ripping chain) but will see how I get on. 

I’m planning to mill a shortish length of oak in a neighbours garden in a few weeks, max 40 inches diameter but my longest bar is 28 inches and my Alaskan will only go to just over 20 inches. So I’ve a similar problem. And it’s halfway up a hillside next to a ravine, so not viable to extract it in one piece. Will probably halve it by freehand sawing and splitting with wedges, then mill each half with the Alaskan into thick slabs which can be re-sawn on a bandsaw after drying to get pairs of book matched planks for table tops if that’s what I decide to use it for. 

Will be interested to see how you get on with this. I’ve had a couple of sycamore trees milled on a bandsaw and found the planks were very stable and stayed flat. But on one of them, the planks were left stacked overnight without stickers as we finished milling late in the afternoon, and in the morning they were already looking mouldy and pretty rubbish! Managed to salvage them by coating them with borax and end rearing for a few weeks to dry the faces before being stacked with stickers.

 

Andrew

[lux]

As several have mentioned it’s got natural antibacterial properties so favoured for food prep / serving boards etc. 

 

I’d just mill it and sell the boards and let someone else worry about what they are going to use it for 😊

[Squaredy]

Just to add to the sycamore discussion, I mill and sell at least ten or fifteen tons of sycamore every year, and I never dry vertically, nor do I worry about the sawdust.  It still sells!