Drying jacaranda . mould problems ?

[JDarvall]

Hi,

I've been offered a big jacaranda to be milled.

Wondering what experiences you have had with it, in particular any mould problems you've had.

Because I don't want to spend money milling it if most of it ends up with mould running through it ,like the bits I've come across. I don't know if I've been unlucky or not.

know of how to avoid this ?

appreciate your thoughts
thanks

Jake

[BobL]

If you are worried about mould use larger stickers (eg 25 instead of 19 mm) and make sure they are stored in a well ventilated location.
You could even go so far as to orient the stack so that any prevailing breezes can flow directly through the sticker gaps.

[wheelinround]

Lucky fellow don't hear of Jac been slabbed.

Mould is best killed by sunlight but can give great effect to timber as spallting its when it turns to wood rot thats not nice.

[JDarvall]

thanks.

[Sigidi]

Jake, I dare say a product like hylite80 (which stops the blue stain aka mould in Hoop pine) would be just the ticket.... but it aint cheap on initial purchase, although over time it ends up being rather cheap

[JDarvall]

ta Allan. I'll keep that in mind. thanks .

[pjt]

I picked up a small (300mm ish) log in the round at an auction that was dry (ish) it was in good condition, no massive end splitting and such with a few little bits of spalting, I don't know how it was stored prior to me getting it tho but I'd say go for it and sticker and stack as per normal.


Pete

[derekcohen]

Hi Jake

I think that you are in luck.

We had a big storm about 2 years ago, and a bough from the Jakaranda in our front garden broke off. Big bugger - broke the roof of the garage. Anyway I saved it, and then cut it into chunks with the intention of resawing it into boards for boxes. I left it to dry for about a year - just small logs lying in the garage. I don't think I even painted the ends. There was very little checking.

I was told the wood is too soft for tool handles. However it does make beautiful white boards, which I rate as medium hard.



Regards from Perth

Derek

[JDarvall]

Thanks for your thoughts.

maybe I shouldn't worry so much about it so much. just that the look bothers me a lot expecially in white timbers.

Nice looking dovetails Derek.

[IanW]

Jake, Jacaranda has to be one of the easiest woods to deal with! You can get bluestain, but as long as you get the MC down pretty quickly, it's unlikely to happen - nowhere near as sensitive as Pine, in my experience. It's my favourite wood for Windsor style chair seats- easy to carve, finishes nicely and is strong for its weight. It has a grain pattern that is almopst identical to Elm, so if you stained it, no-one would spot the difference without a very careful examination. Any decent-sized bit I can get my hands on, I rough slab freehand (the nature of the tree means you get very short straight sections), & sicker them under the house. I've done this at various times of year & so far have never had any problems. However, if you leave any out on the ground for a few months, you will likely have a lot of spalting, at best, or a rotten chunk of good-for nothing garbage DAMHIK!). This is NOT a wood for ground contact!

I would advise care if you use it for furniture. I made a table top from it somne years ago, and it moves a staggering amount with the annual moisture cycle, but it's ok as long as you allow for that. Funnily enough, one of its attributes, as Derek has discovered, is that it will dry in the round with little or no splitting - one of the small number of woods that will. I guess that is a combination of its elastic properties plus the tangential to radial shrinkage ratio being even.

If you don't want this tree, show me where it's at....

Cheers,

[JDarvall]

Thanks Ian,

find that interesting about shrinkage rates being similar. and put my mind at rest on mould.

My biggest problem to overcome is my personal belief that furniture, especially chairs ,shouldn't be made out of soft timbers, despite a lot of the best looking ones being soft like cedar etc...

eg. I could see jacaranda looking great in the stools I'm currently making, but I feel jacaranda's too soft.

I made this stool out of white beech recently just to see how it go, and it turned out well I thought.....but, I can see how easily it'll ding up. I forsee someone very soon damaging it by a little bump.....or say from those studs used in pants (jeans).

Jacaranda be perfect for a batch of stools with a similar tone.....but its all too soft.

***
I'll let you know about the tree. But knowing how it is around here, some noisey lady(or man) whose probably not even into woodwork, only keen for a meddle would have read this post and let known a friend of a friend of a cousins uncle about the tree and ensured a local got it first....or told the bloke who wants the tree gone that its worth something etc etc. (at the very least this post will result in me being hit with some apparent hilarious clever subtle comment about a jacaranda tree in the following days)

sorry for being cynical...

how'd your jacaranda windsor seats hold up....How dinged up are they now ?

[IanW]

....I'll let you know about the tree....

Jake - I wasn't really serious - it's a bit far out of my stamping ground to go cutting & hauling wood - I'd need at least two cut lunches and several full water bags! But thanks for the thought.

..... Jacaranda be perfect for a batch of stools with a similar tone.....but its all too soft.....

how'd your jacaranda windsor seats hold up....How dinged up are they now ?

Well, I agree with you on the first, but not the second part. I don't think Jacaranda is that soft! Certainly softer than Elm, but still much firmer than cedar, or possibly White Beech, though my experience with the latter is too limited to make a comparison. I'd put it in the 'middlin' class - similar to Qld Maple. I reckon you could use Jcaranda for stools like that (noice stools, too, btw) with completre confidence.

The chairs I made for our own use are about 5-6 years old, and in perfect condition,

Chair.jpg

but with only two middle-aged people using them, they haven't been too stressed. However, I have made several kids' chairs using Jacaranda for the seats, and over about 15 years, only one came to grief because I didn't have a single piece wide enough & used PVA to glue two pieces together. I knew I was doing the wrong thing at the time, but I was under pressure, & didn't have a better alternative to hand a tthe time. At least it confirmed what the gurus say about not using PVA glues for joints under continual stress........

If it helps calm your fears, I saw a lot of old 'stick' chairs in Canada, nearly all of which had White Pine seats. White Pine is soft - about the same as our Cedar. A friend of mine has a couple of chairs that are >200 years old, with legs worn down a good couple of inches from being dragged across floors. The seats are a little worn & dinged in places (which you would expect after that time!) but they are still sound and useable. I reckon Jacaraanda would easily equal or better that in well-made chairs.

Cheers,

[JDarvall]

Thanks Ian. I'll stop worrying about it then.

Get some next week, (don't know how much rots in the tree anyway).

Maybe Beef up the legs a bit too for reassssurance.

What do you think its drying rate be like ? 1year an inch thing ?

[IanW]

Thanks Ian. I'll stop worrying about it then.

Get some next week, (don't know how much rots in the tree anyway).

Maybe Beef up the legs a bit too for reassssurance.

What do you think its drying rate be like ? 1year an inch thing ?

Hi Jake,
Depending on average daily humididty levels in your neck of the woods, you should be quite safe at 12 months per inch for Jacaaranda. Rule of thumb is that the less dense the wood, the more quickly it equilibrates. For chair seats, you can get stuck into the job when the MC is several % higher than would be safe for flat work. If the seat material is a bit above equilibrium, it may shrink a little, but all that will do is tighten the leg joints. I'm sure you've read up on green woodworking, and would be well aware of the principle of fitting dry tenons into lesss-dry mortises & not needing glue. I wouldn't advise using the stuff soaking wet, because you may get unpredictable shrinkage, especially if the grain is wild. All of the jacaranda I've dried so far has dried very nicely, with little tendency to warp, but I did watch the grain directions & kept the slabs short (you don't get many with more than a few feet of trunk or branch going in one direction, anyway!), which I think helps.

Can't see any point in changing your leg dimensions - won't alter seat strength, and risks ruining the nice lines of your chairs. What the North Americans did when they switched to Pine for seats was increase the thickness of the seat blank compared with a hardwood seat (50mm is common). To reduce the appearance of bulkiness, they carved them more deeply, and also cut away the bottom edge of the sides very heavily, to make them look thinner. They were so succesful, that to my eye, their chairs often look much better than the British forbears. These lighter seats also give chairs a much better balance when picked up by the top rail to move them. So increasing the bulk of your legs would not only make the chairs & stools look dumpy, it will proably make them more awkward to pick up.

The seat of the chair pictured above is 40mm thick, which is more than enough for structural strength. If I were to remake them, I would try reducing the section sizes of the legs & king spindles a bit (not too much or they would start to look under-fed). The River Oak would still be more than adequately strong, but it would give the chair a better balance. I'd also cut the seat sides away more than I did, & carve the bum relief about 8mm deeper at the back.

Doesn't pay to keep anything I make for too long - the faults I see get worse with time. I'd probably have had them back in the shed & had a go at them by now, but the boss would say something like "What do you want to muck about with them for, they are perfectly ok as-is - if you really want a job, I have a little list here for you!"

Anyways, you seem to have a good eye, & I'm sure you will soon sort it out for yourself......
Cheers

[rustynail]

One advantage with soft timber in furniture is that dents can be easily steamed out. Harder timbers tend to break the fibres, thus rupturing the cells, making steaming difficult.