Uses of honey locust

Re: Uses of honey locust

Bruce, a MN Galoot

>I made the lid for a toolbox for my bil from honey locust. It is evil wood. Evil. It has a wonderful grain, but it switches direction every chance it gets, tears out and chips. If you have a top-notch smoother, that will help tremendously. I don't, so I will freely admit that I murdered a bunch of electrons it getting it smooth.

Bruce

Re: Uses of honey locust

Tom Sontag - St. Louis

>I have sawn a few honey locust logs and I think the wood is often prettier than black cherry. Cream colored sapwood, like cherry, and a pinkish toned heartwood with more striated color variations than cherry. Unfortunately, yours does not sound big enough for sizable lumber, but its all good and worth a try IMO. It can be difficult to distinguish honey locust logs and lumber from kentucky coffeebean, although I guess that does not help or hurt you much in this case. Black locust is much harder and world class rot resistant, but the dull yellowish tan heartwood is unremarkable except that it is flourescent.

HL is harder than white oak, so it could be used for tool handles I suppose. If you have anything close to proper tooling, try it, you'll like it.

Re: Uses of honey locust

Robin Corell, Atascadero CA

>Here is a pic of a pair of stools/bench made out of black locust. I aquired the wood when I lived in San Jose where black locuse is very comon as a street tree as well as wild along the creeks and streems. I now live several hours south and it is also comon wild along the streems and creeks. in fact many consider it a weed tree. The blosoms can be pink, purple, and even white but each tree is only one color.

Honey locust is supposed to be more desireable than blak, I disagre. I like the dark streaks that give it a real exotic look. Also the color gets darker and richer as it ages. You can't tell from the pic but the bottom is carved with a gouge. it is not known as a good carving wood but it is consistant if carved across the grain. it is extremely hard but does not have interlocking grain, hence I would not recomend it for tool handles. I once made a hammer handle for a small continental hammer and it broke after a year or two. It cuts and machines well but can be prone to burning with anything less than a razor sharp blade.

Locust dries well and once dry is very stable. The bench was actually made from wood milled from a large limb and had zero reaction when cut after it was dry. the catch is that locust can take twice as long or longer to dry than any other wood I have milled. if you work with it before it is bone dry it will have excessive movement.

the pungent smell is not as strong once the wood is dry.

Robin Corell

Re: Uses of honey locust

Peter Hyde

>Here's one you mentioned.

Most Honey Locust are the thornless cultivars and are used for landscaping, usually along city streets. If yours has thorns then it is the Gleditsia triacanthos and is a member of the Cassia family.

Black Locust, Robinia pseudoacacia (Pea family) has no thorns and has a slightly different leaf structure.

Either wood is decay resistant and shows some beautiful grain patterns. When dry it is hard to work and needs a low angle and very sharp plane.

Re: And some more uses of honey locust

Peter Hyde

>I have been turning this pattern of handle from green locust wood and then drying in the microwave. Works OK and handles take a nice shellac/wax polish.

Re: Uses of honey locust

John Veerkamp

>Both locust types make great turning wood. Lots of color variations as previously said. From Scout days many years ago , Honey locust has small thorns, big leaves, Black has big thorns, small leaves.

Worhh keeping IMHO.

John

Oh, does this one have thorns

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Part of why I'm planning to hire the cutting down is that the branches under about four inches have thorns far worse than my wife's feral roses. So I guess it's the Gleditsia triacanthos variety you mention.

It's been a while since I saw some wood - my memory of the heartwood is more green than anything else.

Re: Uses of honey locust *LINK*

Jay Moyer

>I belive you have the thorn size and leave size switched around. Honey locust has very large and long thorns, 2-4" long, and black locust have short rose like thorns on small trees and old large trees it is diffucult to find them sometimes at all. I have cleared an old pasture on honey locust and it was the worst winter of my life. On the other hand black locust, along with osage orange/hedge/hundred other different names makes absolutely wonderful fence post.


http://www.depauw.edu/univ/naturepark/natural_resources/trees/Locust%20(Black).htm

Black locust and Honey locust

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>Black locust and honey locust are easy to tell apart by the bark. Black locust has deeply furrowed grey bark while honey locust has rather smooth black-grey bark. Black locust has a pair of spines at each node on the young twigs. The spines are about 1/2 inch long. Honey locust has thorns that are sometimes branched and can be 2 inches long or so. The thorns can be on the trunk or large branches and they are not arranged in pairs as are the spines on black locust.

terrible picture, Peter....

Rob Brophy...lost in Niagara

>...those handles are gorgeous and deserve studio photography!! The depth of the finish is completely lost in the shot...the wood has chatoyance that you could dip your finger into.

I am lucky enough to have a set of Peter's handles and they are the best I own. Each is slightly smaller than the next, meaning you don't have look to know which chisel you are picking up. And he also changes the thumb grip somehow so the smaller ones aren't uncomfortable in my big mitt. These are -well engineered- handles. Don't know what the finish is but they glow!

Thanks again Peter,

Rob...pleased as punch in Niagara

Re: Uses of honey locust

John Veerkamp

>could be I have them reversed, it was over 50 years ago.

John

Re: Uses of honey locust *LINK*

Ken Martin in Sacramento

>For a sample of Honey Locust from the book:

Romeyn B. Hough's American Woods, Volume II

Click on the link below.


Honey Locust

curious minds need to know...

vlparisian - Houston

>Where did you find that? Are most woods listed/pictured? This is good stuff. Should take some guess work out of wood identifying.

Victor - enjoying a fine Sunday morning in Houston

Try this *LINK*

Dan Donaldson

>For many links, to find where it cane from, just start backing up the link, deleting one section at a time to get to where it came from.


http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/forestry/collections.html

Great link

Jim Reed @ tallahassee

>WOW! That is an on line treasure chest. Thanks for the link.

Re: curious minds need to know... *LINK*

Ken Martin in Sacramento

>Here is the link to the book "The American Woods"

"Radial, tangential, and cross-sections of 350 North American woods from the 14-volume rare book The American Woods, published between 1888 and 1910 by the author, Romeyn Beck Hough.


The American Woods

Re: Uses of honey locust

Mike G.

>I didn't read the whole thread to see if someone else suggested this, but around these parts, we use locust for fence rails and posts. If put in the ground right, the posts will last 50 or more years. There is one instance of a person who owned a local sawmill and had some yellow locust sawn up for flooring. I never saw it but was told it made a beautiful floor. FWIW.

Mike G. in SC

Re: And some more uses of honey locust

Ernie miller Topeka ks

>I'll take them three handles and three more. that will keep me covered untill spring garage sale season starts.

Re: And some more uses of honey locust

Peter Hyde

>Sorry Ernie those 3 went to Rob.

Maybe some of the next batch?