Hello. I am new to Timber Frame building.I am contemplating the use of Larch for my first
attempt with a frame, because of its reputed durability and strength. However, when I
went to a local mill where a few logs, sawn on two sides, were stored under the mill roof
for a few years, I noticed significantly more end checking and splitting, as well as ring
shake, than similar logs of spruce and pine inderspersed in the pile. One such log of
Larch was shattered at the end with all the sapwood rings and many heartwood ones
separated from each other. The fibers of the dried logs looked to me as if one had taken
wood fibers and immersed them into a liquid oligomer resin but without strong adhesion
with each other, as if the liquid resin had failed to cross-link or polymerize.

Does anyone have experience with Larch in a frame ? I have been reading in the books that
its properties are similar to Douglas Fir, which appears very often in featured frames.
But I am wondering if anyone has used Larch and has any comments to make on end joints
and the associated splitting forces they can generate. I am afraid that a Larch post
mortized at or near the end would split under rotational/shear forces applied from the
inside by the associated tenon, in side-load conditions like wind loads. Maybe one should
use wrap-around metal connectors in end joints ?

Also, does anyone have experience with drying Larch ? with the amount of resin the Larch
wood carries, does it make a difference if felling takes place in the winter or in the
summer ? A Japanese wood researcher has warned me that air drying large beams of Larch is
prone to warping because Larch, especially when young, has a tendency for spiral growth.
Any special conditions for kiln drying to avoid warps splits and shakes ?

Thanks in advance,
Vasilios Vutsadakis
vutsada@yahoo.com