Heart Pine

[D Moose]

What is a good price to pay for Heart Pine?I know an older gentleman and he was showing me some Heart Pine he got it from another gentlemen.He said that the gentleman he got it from had it in a barn since the 1940s it was just sitting there in this barn all stacked up since the 1940s.The gentleman that has it probably has about 500bf left he had 5000bf and he got it for next to nothing, some of its pretty rough (warped twisted) but alot of it is in great shape. What would be a good price to pay per bf.:icon_thum

 

[D Moose]

Ummm good for me!

 

[D Moose]

Its all different widths about an inch thick. He said he bought 5000bf for $500 a few years ago and the 500 bf is what he has left

 

[jeff...]

Looking at some of the local to Raleigh lumber yards, it's looking like heart pine retails form $5.00 ~ $18.00 a BF

Thanks

 

[D Moose]

Thank You very much!:icon_thum

 

[Tarhead]

Bonewood has some for $3.00/bf included in his lumber run through Charlotte this weekend.

"100% old growth heart pine, 62 rings per inch, 8/4 to 13/4, century old
3.00"

 

[DIYGUY]

I am going to turn the question around and ask what is a good use for Heart Pine? I have some salvaged from a burned house that is a royal PITA to deal with. First I had to dig out all the nails and then I must plane it down to remove the scorching. I do have some nice looking grain in the boards I reclaimed so far, but they are very weird boards. They are heavy, they feel amost oily or waxy (even after over half-a-century of aging and 'kiln drying by fire.") I just don't know what to make out of them that would feature their best characteristics to advantage. I have started to make a simple TV stand for my son and I think it is going to wind up looking like "This End Up" furniture when all is done. Not particularly noteworthy but at least functional. Does anyone have a good suggestion for where/how best to use it? BTW - I think this is the same wood sold in mail-order catalogs as expensive kindling commonly referred to as "fatwood." Is that the case?

 

[Tarhead]

It makes pretty floors (a little high maintenance though) and reproduction furniture except for table tops. Norm recently used quarter sawn heart pine to make a CD cabinet which turned out nice.

 

[PurpleThumb]

Try to sell it to Norm Abrams of NYWS. He seems to love it. Like you I don't find furniture made from it particularly attractive when with the same effort or less you can use hardwoods.

 

[dino drosas]

I built the entrannce doors to my house out of heart pine. My front door is fully exposed and of course it rotted. Last summer I made this one to match the others. Two inches thick with 1/2 inch beveled glass panels. One thing for sure is that it gums up your tooling very quickly; the J/P being the worst. When the cutting edges get loaded up with pitch, tools just stop cutting.

 

[jeff...]

Nice Door :icon_thum. If I may interject, old reclaimed heart pine is air dried pine, it's MC is probably around 12~14% and the pitch has not been set in accordance to the correct kiln schedule. I would have to check but I think it needs to be brought to and remain at either 150 or 180 degrees for 24 or 48 hours to set the pitch (someone chime in here). So the nit is when the pine gets warm the unset pitch will seep from the lumber creating a sticky mess. Machining like running a blade through it with a table saw often generates enough heat to cause the pitch to seep in the area where it was heated up. Best bet is to have it properly kiln dried and ensure the pitch is set at the end of the drying schedule. Stick a chunk in the sun on a hot day and let it get good and hot, see what it does. This is the main reasons I don't cut pine on my mill, even when it's green and full of water it's still hard to control pitch build up. Unlike drying hardwood, pine dries fast and at higher temperatures but it requires an extra step (pitch set) to be made usable for furniture projects.

Thanks

 

[Kyle]

PItch does need to be set to keep it from oozing. Minimum is 150 F for 24 hours.


Basically "setting" the pitch is boiling off the water in the rosin.