I just posted photos of some wood on abpw that I may be interested in
buying. I mentioned in another thread a few days ago that a local guy here
advertised "Chestnut" lumber for sale. I'm in York, PA, which is the next
county west of Lancaster County, PA. I went and looked at it after doing
some research on what chestnut looked like. He had demolished a couple of
houses that were built in the early 1900's. There were a lot of chestnut
trees here at one time, but they may have been gone by the 1900's.
I'm pretty sure this isn't chestnut, but what is it??? Long, straight,
tight, grain, without knots in most of it. It has no distinct smell like
oak or maple or cedar. You can tell it was shaped into wall studs, roof
rafters, and floor joists. He has lots of it. The pieces are "true
dimensional" - 4/4, 8/4, some 12/4. Lengths anywhere from 8' to 12'.
I ran this piece on my jointer to clean it up, and did an angle cut to try
and pick up the figure better (probably a dumb newbie thought). A friend of
mine who does some restoration work had a piece of pine from the mid 1800's,
and it has some similarity to that, but the grain on this is so much
tighter. It's somewhat soft when I run a nail across it.
Any thoughts or opinions would be welcome - Thanks in advance for your
help -
Nick B