Hi Will, Red pine, that is cheap and it will wind. Define needles and track, please and thank you. I will be sawing my own and may rent it out when not in use. 16' will be the stock I start with. Tim

I believe a "needle" is a long piece of material, either steel or wood that goes through a structure to be used as a general support. And a "track" would be one that goes perpendicular to the first to form a grid.
But I could be wrong about the "track" definition.
I've seen slide shows before showing "needles" going through buildings, so I think I've got that one right....

I was eyeing up the red oak firewood pile at work today, thinking about making a truck load of cribbing. I have a ton of small diameter red pine at home, might saw that for cribbing. Not much lighter than the oak when it green though.


Dave

Track is a term I might not shoulda used, but I’m used to these pieces having multiple uses. Track literally that, a bed of staggered timber supported by low cribs, placed to roll a bridge or a building on –

Needles as Jim suggests are the support matrix that the crib towers carry, you might crib up to floor level and support all the joists with a bed of timber needles, then crib on up above to catch the plates with some steel needles, no two jobs demand the same shoring plan, that’s half the fun in the rigging end of this game.

It’s also good practice to tie towers in tall spaces together, with needles placed solely for that reason, say anything that is gonna demand a few feet above ten – These are also useful for scampering from jacking station to jacking station.

A few 8’s and 20’s would come in useful also.

There is that weight issue once more. I am in a similar debate with myself and the red oak firewood pile. I have used it so far for purlins, braces, posts, pegs, wedges, joist and now blocking for needles and track to sit on, all out of the firewood pile @ $100.00/ cord. As an average thats about two cord/ thousand. Tim