Bought some Beech

[se7enthdevil]

The arb trade calls it "starting to rot", Shigo will fill you in on the details

 

what's shigo?

 

to be fair having a second look i think i am mistaken and it is a pathogen which in time will rot out as skyhuck has stated rather than redheart which is just normal colour for some older beech trees.

[Gerbutt]

The bits that are soft will stay that way but the rest will be fine. I milled one the same as that and the boards are still sound two years later.

[treequip]

what's shigo?

 

to be fair having a second look i think i am mistaken and it is a pathogen which in time will rot out as skyhuck has stated rather than redheart which is just normal colour for some older beech trees.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Shigo

 

Still essential reading for anyone dealing with trees and timber

A New Tree Biology and Dictionary

Modern Arboriculture - Touch Trees

Tree Anatomy

[Hoss]

The white wood splits lovely but the dark centred bits are very stringy , reckon got about 12 ton of it ! Hope it will dry hard OK to sell.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Hoss

[treequip]

The bits that are soft will stay that way but the rest will be fine. I milled one the same as that and the boards are still sound two years later.

 

Maybe but its a fine line between useable and gone too far. In simple terms the tree "as was" has written that timber off and compartmentalised it, abandoned it to its fate.

 

All that nice colour, "spalting" and what not, its just decay pre cursors

[se7enthdevil]

not all colour will be spalting.

 

 

here is a good description of redheart in beech.

 

Redheart

[treequip]

not all colour will be spalting.

 

 

here is a good description of redheart in beech.

 

Redheart

 

OK, you are calling it redheart, or rather the site that is there to sell you things has used that term and you have swallowed it. I think its better described as a decay pre cursor.

 

If you read through the baffleology on that site it lists what you need to look further into. chromophoric just means it has changed colour but it sounds nice and scientific. initiated by external factors means the changed state is a reaction and its usually to damage. oxygen entering the wood fibres , well yes but that's mostly a red herring, far more significant is the action of pathogens (fungi for the most part). They make enzymes which change the state of the timber. Loosely speaking, lignin and cellulose are digested at differing rates causing the change in colour. Google brown and white rot for more on that or this book is the daddy (IMO) Fungal Strategies of Wood Decay in Trees | Francis W.M.R. Schwarze | Springer. This is a good "wiki" page on the subject it even has a decent picture of the compartmentalisation process although its on Acer rather than Fagus and I think the age thing is a mile off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_of_decay_in_trees

 

In some timber you can get a marked colour difference lignified and non lignified cells (sapwood and heartwood) but its usually highly regular in form. Laburnum is a particularly good example and I can see how a bsologist could get to "redheart" from a place like that.

 

 

Generating redheart

is a natural process in living beech trees, in which, simply put, provisional substances are transformed into chromophoric ingredients. The pigmentation of the core is initiated by external factors. The most common causes are branches, that have broken off, and other injuries, which lead to oxygen entering the wood fibres (xylem).

[se7enthdevil]

here are some examples of redheart i have bought over the years.

 

 

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[se7enthdevil]

this one arrived only last year from julian mitchell at totally trees Home and is on here as http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/members/totallyjules.html

 

this tree fell over root plate and all in high winds but was totally sound. the colour goes through the entire tree branches included and is solid as the rest of the wood.

 

redheart has often been described as a polite term for heartwood in beeches as it can have a varied width sapwood.

 

it's along the same lines as olive figure i ash, not all ash trees have it but it's not fungal decay or even a precursor.

 

 

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[Timber Man]

this one arrived only last year from julian mitchell at totally trees Home and is on here as http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/members/totallyjules.html

 

this tree fell over root plate and all in high winds but was totally sound. the colour goes through the entire tree branches included and is solid as the rest of the wood.

 

redheart has often been described as a polite term for heartwood in beeches as it can have a varied width sapwood.

 

it's along the same lines as olive figure i ash, not all ash trees have it but it's not fungal decay or even a precursor.

 

 

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Its commonly know as brown stain in the UK trade.