Hi Jim,

Re your remarks about Juniper. I was told during a visit to Finland that they used this wood for making pegs / pins. I have also noted some very large stems puported to be Juniper that have been used for the main structural timbers in the Peter French round horse breaking barn located in Frenchglen, Oregon. (see page 112 of The American barn by Randy Leffingwell).

My own experience of Juniper is that this tends to grow in bush form and therefore is unlikely to reach timber framing proportions. The advice that you provided above might go some way to explaining how common usage of misnommers might explain this apparent contradiction however, those main posts in the Peter French barn do not demonstrate the round profile associated with Larch, etc. and I might well place a bet they they are indeed Juniper.

Regards

Ken Hume