Bobh,

Although I have not worked with freshly sawn red pine, I have some experience with it as a framing material. Last year we worked on the Crawford Barn project which involved disassembling, repairing and raising a very large barn at a new location. The barn was roughly 100 years old and the main sction was framed completely of red pine.

In general the pine seemed to have done quite well. Very little insect damage and surprising rot resistance. It did seem to react similar to Douglas Fir in tension perpendicular to the grain. Poorly. Otherwise it was still quite workable 100 years after harvest.

We did end up replacing the bad timber with Douglas Fir due to the fact that it was available and so were it's design values. I would say go ahead and design for your available timber. Worked for Colonel Crawford.

Rudy