I was just wondering if any of you, especially those who like small projects, inspect hollow trees for good material?
Some of the most incredible figured wood that I've run across came from hollow trees. Whether those trees would have had the same amount of figure if they had been sound or not, I could't say. However, I think that a large tree with a hollow trunk, especially if near houses or obstacles that deflect the wind which would induce twisting, may develop extra figure to prevent splitting from the shear forces that straight grain wouldn't be able to withstand.
This is just a heads up for those of you who harvest your own, and are always on the look out for something unique. One big maple I got probably 20 years ago had such interlocked grain in it's 3" thick wall, that I couldn't get it to split with a splitting maul when it was only about 4" long.
Used that many times. You also get the benefit of powder post beetles, ants, and termites! I've seen maples where the outside several inches of solid trees also had much better figure than the center. I've always contributed that to the tree being under distress and changes it's growth. Just my assumption.
You'd also have that thin shell of sound wood supporting all the weight and wind-generated forces, instead of a solid trunk. I would expect more curl and cool figure, but also a more reactive, potentially unstable, wood.
When I lived in Thetford, VT, I had a huge hollow Sugar Maple in the front yard. About 4' x 5' at the base, and a very large, open "crack" or opening on one side, revealing only about 4" - 6" of wood around a good part of the trunk, and a large hollow inside that 2 people could easily stand in. Neighbors remembered playing hide-n-seek and hiding up to 4 kids inside that tree about 40 years earlier, but the opening was slowly closing in as new wood curled around and narrowed the opening, and I was not able to get in there. You could tell at a glance that this wood has some serious cigar curl -- you could readily see that pattern coming right through the thinner bark over the new wood.
I never cut up that tree (still standing -- I drove past it about a month ago), but I have gotten some nice, highly figured Maple from smaller trees with similar hollows. I'm just guessing, but I think the narrow band of wood supporting all that stress must be the reason.
Big Apple trees are very often hollow -- maybe a great source of highly-figured wood for small items? I've got a big old hollow Apple tree on my land now, but won't cut it until it suffers some catastrophic damage.
