16/4 quartersawn beech...

Sorry...

Denis Ch�nard, Ottawa, Ont.

>Found the board, it is only 3 1/2 by 5 1/2...

Would that still do? It's been drying for close to 10 years...

DC

Re: I thought beech was used...

Christof Hartge

>Hello Larry,

that's an impressive analysis of the properties of beech. Thank you very much.

Still I want to repeat my question. Why not hornbeam? As far as I know it is harder and more wear resistant than beech. My 28" jointer in hornbeam, although in bad shape from former abuse, shows very little movement.

Christof.

Re: Sorry...

Steve Kubien

>I've got a 3x3-36 piece of mahogany with layout lines already on it. You piece of beech will work just fine.

Have fun,

Steve Kubien

Re: Sorry...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>It probably started out 4x6...

Re: Sorry...

Frank D. in Montreal

>Well Denis, since you kindly offered (not that I put any pressure on you... ;) ), check your Email.

Frank

Christoff

Larry Williams

>I've spent a couple hours reading about hornbeam but the detailed information I have is about American hornbeam. The only hornbeam I have here is a Lie-Nielsen chisel handle and I magnified it to have a close look. It is American hornbeam. Now I know just enough to say I don't know.

Maybe you can fill in some information for me. How close is European hornbeam to American hornbeam and are they even in the same family? What's the ray structure like? Tangential and radial expansion rates. How does it dry? What's its working properties?

One thing that does strike me about it is that it eventually became used only for the sole, laminated on with the aid of a kind of mechanical joint. That has to be more expensive and time consuming than making the whole plane of it. Any ideas what may have brought about this evolution in use?

On the positive side, Lie-Nielsen does use it in chisel handles. There's some reasoning behind that choice and it's more than a supply issue. My information is that American hornbeam is of little commercial use so I'd guess Lie-Nielsen had to basically create a supplier.

I have experience with a lot of different woods in relation to plane making. European hornbeam isn't one of them.

Re: Hornbeam

Christof Hartge

>Hello Larry,

as to the properties and identity of hornbeam, I'll look it up. Only can't do it just now.

But to the laminated sole: These laminated soles came in use in the 20 th century. If you pick up any older German plane, you'll find they are made of hornbeam nearly eclusively.

Please look up this Catalogue of F W Emmerich, printed in 1936: http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/kataloge/fwe1_01a.phtml

(much thanks to Wolgang Jordans, who maintains this site.) On page 1a all planes are offerd in "Weissbuche" (synonym for "Hornbeam"). Only one plane is offered with a laminated sole and that is the plane with a lignum vitae sole.

On page 2a you'll find a second line of planes. They are priced cheaper and described as "basic". In other words: The cheapo-line. These planes are made of beech.

So at least for Karl Emmerich in 1936 hornbeam was the first choice.

My conclusion is: The laminating of the sole was originaly invented for lignum vitae planes. The planemakers did want to use the advantages of exotic woods, but couldn't build the whole body out of it.

Very much later- I suspect around the 1950's - this technique was applied to hornbeam. Why? Hornbeam isn't as easy and cheap to get as beech. So, as the mechanical joint was no longer expensive it was an advantage to use beech for the body and hornbeam for the sole.

Compare the link of the 1913 catalogue: http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/kataloge/kem2_03.jpg

Massive pplanes in beech or hornbeam, hornbeam is more expensive.

and the Ott catalogue of 1940: http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/kataloge/ott2_08.phtml

Christof.

Hophornbeam *LINK*

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>In a previous thread (see link below), William Duffield indicated that the Lie-Nielsen handles are actually made from Hophornbeam, not American Hornbeam.


Lie-Nielsen Chisel Handle Wood

Re: Hornbeam

Patrick Gibbons, Houston

>Properly speaking, hornbeam is a birch. European hornbeam is carpinus betulus, American hornbeam is carpinus caroliniana. American hornbeam is an understory tree that is shade tolerant, slow-growing and does not transplant well. It is somewhat agressive when an area of timber is cut and is considered a weed by many. It is a relatively small tree that does not yield much timber when cut. For all these reasons it has not been commercially viable. European hornbeam has many of the same characteristics though it seems to grow larger in general than its American cousin but does not tolerate as wide a climatic range. Hornbeam doesn't split well at all, is hard to work, tough, small and slow-growing. I gleaned this info from a quick search of internet sources. It appears to me that hornbeam has been passed over because it's not economically viable to commercial lumbermen or nurserymen and its use has been limited to those few whose special needs and opportunities have dictated its use.

Re: Hophornbeam

Patrick Gibbons, Houston

>Ostrya Virginiana, hop hornbeam, is related to American hornbeam and the two can be found growing side by side though the hop hornbeam can take much drier conditions than its cousin. The two are very similar in size and characteristics. Their barks are quite different visually. As my earlier post stated about American hornbeam, hop hornbeam also is not commercially viable to the lumber industry though it is somewhat more viable than American hornbeam for landscaping purposes. Once again, I have gleaned these observations from a quick search of internet sources.

CArpinus betulus

Christof Hartge

>Hello Larry

a complete list about the properties of European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) is found here:

http://www.schreiner-seiten.de/holz/index.htm

Urs from the German woodworking forum directed me there.

Unfortunately the list is long an it is in German. I'm so lazy and picked out the informations, you requested. If you want to have translated more, just ask.

tangential expansion rate: 0,39% per 1% moisture changing

radial expansion rate: 0,23% per 1% moisture changing

The ray structure is very fine. The rays are often so narrow to one another, that the viewer might get the impression that there false broad rays.

Christof.

Re: Hophornbeam

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>There's a good possibility the L-Ns supplier has cut both species and supplied both to L-N for chisel handles. My observation was of a very small sample. Maybe I just got lucky. I'll have to examine the 5/16" I ordered separately with a magnifier and Hoadley's book.

I understand a similar situation occurs with "red oak" which can be one of several different species, most of which are impossilbe to tell apart without the leaves.

American Hornbeam

Andreas Winkler

>American Hornbeam is very closely related to European Hornbeam. Both woods have almost the same characteristics. Not only they belong to the same family, even to the same genus. It is the same thing with American and European Beech and American and European Hope Hornbeam.

Only differences with these three species are that the American variants grow a bit smaller and and their wood is a bit lighter than of their European counterparts.

Hornbeam is not closely related to beech. They belong to the same order, but to different families.

As already mentioned hornbeam is one of the hardest domestic woods (both, N-America and Europe), superior to beech. I think only boxwood is harder and more dense. Hope hornbeam is superior to "normal" hornbeam, it weights also more. Both species are very close together, their woods are at the same shipments.

American Hornbeam is growing in whole Northern America, especially at the US east coast. Hope hornbeam prefers more southern areas.

Mark of origins are Alean Tree, Blue Beech(because of its bark), Water Beech in the US, Smooth-barked Iron Wood in Canada and Lechillo, Palo Barrano and Palo Silo in Mexiko.

I read that hornbeam is difficult to dry. There shall be the same "fungus characteristics" with hornbeam like Larry told us for beech.

Can´t give an exact analysis of movment and the capacity of hornbeam´s moisture exchange. But I own some hornbeam woodies (partly they are stored in a barn). They can be used during the whole year with no restrictions. Neither loose wedges nor wracking nor other distortion nor something similar.

As Christof mentioned, hornbeam was the favorite wood of German and Austrian planemakers. The French planes, I saw, were also made from hornbeam. It is more resistant to wear than beech. Hornbeam was used for applications with extrem wear, e.g. planes or threads of wooden clamps and of vises of workbenches.

Only British planemakers seemed to prefer beech instead of hornbeam, while hornbeam also grew and still grows in Great Britain. (British mark of origin for hornbeam: Yoke elm). I think, the thing is like Christof assumed: hornbeam is not that widespread in GB that at Continental Europe.

Perhaps British emmigrants took their "beech-favor" with them to the new continent, so American woodies were also made from beech.

The favor for beech (with its inferiority to hornbeam) might have brought Brits and Americans to look for improvment, whereas Germans were pleased with their hornbeam woodies. Maybe that´s one of the reasons, why metal planes were invented ? ;-)

Greetings from Germany, Andreas Winkler

Re: American hornbeam

Warren in PA

>I have seen thousands of American hornbeam trees in at least a dozen states over the last 40 years. I have never seen one tree that looked like nice lumber for plane making. It is very rare that forest trees get to be 10 inches in diameter and the trunks are heavily fluted and twisted because the grain is not straight. Trees grown in the open can be some what larger but grow branches all along the trunk. I would be shocked if someone wrote in that they had been making planes of this wood.

Hornbeam is also known locally as musclewood, blue beech,and ironwood. Hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) is also sometimes called ironwood and is also a small tree.

Re: American Hornbeam

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>I enjoyed your facts on the details of Hornbeam. Thanks Andreas.JR

Re: American hornbeam

Bob Hackett

>I have alog yard not far from my house where I have more than once picked up offcuts from hop hornbeam logs that were big enough to turn 16" bowls.

You can also buy hornbeam hammer handles from more than one company up here too.One company offers up to a 10 pound sledgehammer with thier hornbeam handle attached.

I`ve also seen large hornbeam bowls being sold from the Granville Mill in VT so I know Maine isn`t the only place to have these trees grow to large enough size to be commercially viable.

Sometimes you just have to get out there and look.I have an old gent who I turn dogwood tool handles for.When I asked where he kept coming up with dogwood he brought me out to a recently logged over area and showed me how to recognize it by the bark.Most of it doesn`t get any bigger than the old lilacs around here.BTW-both these woods are local favorites for chisel handles.

Mainely,Bob

Re: I thought beech was used...

paul womack

>IIRC hornbeam was considered a premium wood for planes in continental Europe - I'm sure I've seen (but can't locate) adverts speaking of "real hornbeam planes"

BugBear

Re: Hornbeam

Wolfgang Jordan

>Just last Friday I visited the archive of 'Deutsches Museum' in Munich and looked at some very interesting old tool catalogs. Among other information I also found some facts about the use of hornbeam and beech for planemaking in Germany.

The 'Laupheimer Werkzeugfabrik', one of the major German tool manufacturers states in a 1927 catalog, that hornbeam is the best wood for planemaking and 'We do not make any beech planes with hornbeam sole!'. Obviously other companies had begun to do just that in order to make their planes cheaper and the 'Laupheimer Werkzeugfabrik' was forced to defend their policy. Three years later they set up a line of planes made from applewood with a hornbeam sole. Another three years later, in 1933, beech and hornbeam both are considered primary woods for planemaking. A new line of planes appears, marketed as household planes and made of beech with a hornbeam sole.

The reason behind this change? According to a catalog of another German company from the 1950s it was availability: "Because of the shortage of good hornbeam the bodies of bench planes nowadays are made of beech with soles of hornbeam and lignum vitae."

Wolfgang