My FIL gave me a large slab of Tupelo wood several years ago. It's probably 3" thick, and about 30" x 60". It's fairly "bland" looking, and I don't turn or carve, so haven't found a use for it. It's just been taking up room in the shop. I recently started thinking about making a small table for the deck, and was wondering about using the tupelo slab as the top. Google says it has "low to moderate" decay resistance, but I was thinking it might last 5-10 years with some stain and spar polyurethane (and probably some yearly maintenance). Anyone have any experience with this wood for outdoor use?
If you are intending to finish the wood it does not matter what the decay resistance of the wood is. It takes moisture to support decay and varnished wood excludes moisture. Paining will be more durable. It is plain wood. Little reason not to paint it.
Your research is correct. It rots quickly and spar urethane will require yearly maintenance. If the spar urethane cracks, water gets in, and the the urethane lifts off the wood.
Jim, There are two kinds of Tupelo that grow in the USA. Water or Swamp Tupelo grows in the water, has a swollen buttress which is where the soft light wood is from. Black tupelo can grow down in the lowland or flood plane, on up to the high ground. It is about as hard as soft maple in my estimation.
As for the decay resistance, the tree that I took down and sawed on my mill had lost a large limb that fell onto my neighbors camp about 40 years earlier. What was odd to me, was that there wasn't much decay where that 12" branch broke off and never healed over. Also, there was a lot of ring shake in the trunk, but no decay in or around that, which didn't go up and connect with the broken out zone.
Now I have seen plenty of hollow Black Tupelo trees over the years. But one more tidbit. I have a good friend who is a dendrochronologist PhD that told me he had found one somewhere up in the NE that had over 500 annual rings. I had a hard time imagining that. I wondered how a tree with so little insect and decay resistance could live that long without any injuries that let them in.
"Uppa Heya" in the Northeast, it's referred to as Tupelo or Sweet Gum and consider pulp wood.
The example I worked with has interlocking grain and thwarted my Newbie efforts to finish.
A few recent breakthroughs in my clumsy techniwue revealed a spectacular figure in the stuff. I can't imagine something with 500 growth rings working the same way this swamp stock did.
The display frame used Tupelo as the rails, East to West.
