Sometimes we don't always get the ideal timbers in high supply. Sometimes we stick to lower stuff because it's what we can get and still stick with our ideas of using local stuff, or stuff just that needs thinned out. The idea of putting everything to use in one way or another and not wasting our resources.
What do you guys know about cherry? We have some old barns in our area made with cherry, and people love to make things out of the old cherry beams whenever they can get their hands on them. These are the oldest barns, which in our area were built mainly in the 1870s or 80s (This area wasn't settled until the 1840s and 50s, and then cabins were the first things built)
Cherry seems like one of those things that you would avoid, yet it was used.
And so was elm.
There is a lot of wood that you would think of as not being ideal that was used in the old days.
white oak, cherry, maple, hickory, elm, walnut, chestnut, ash, beech, pine and poplar -these are all known to have been used in Indiana. Tulip poplar was actually the preferred tree for log cabins in Indiana when it as first settled for some reason, and some of these cabins are still standing 200 years later. I wonder if some of our modern wood wisdom isn't as wise as we think (I always heard that poplar should never be used outside, for example) I wonder if some of our modern wisdom applies only to sawn lumber, and not so much to hewn and/or riven wood.
I'd really be interested in finding the strength and span abilities of Hickory and maple, because I can get lots and lots of these very easily. Sugar maple grows everywhere around here!
I wonder if we haven't forgotten that there are things out there other than oak and pine and fir. We seemed to have known that at one time. I enjoy studying the old barns around here, and trying to guess their age and who built them by their joinery, profiles, etc. Sometimes I get very confused trying to determine the wood species used on them, often I think they actually have mixed species, or at least things I don't expect to find because I generally expect oak. I have found ash, hickory, cherry, and then some that for some reason I just can't figure out at all. There is an old 2 story log cabin that I have had a hard time trying to determine the wood species.
