Birch Heart wood

[AlexanderTheLate]

Recently, I have been staggering under the weight of some monster wood. It was about two cord of mainly birch, cut by road builders extending the forestry roads waaay up in the sticks. Most of it is gong to the wood pile, but I have been carving it like mad, Birch is my favourite wood to carve (and the list of hard wood in NL is very limited). Much of the wood is this really red color in the heart. Just out of curiosity, is this very early spalting? Or is this just the color of normal OLD birch heart wood, because most birch wood I have seen, spalted at a much paler color. I must emphasize, this is very old wood (the bark averages 3/4 inch- 1 inch thick) and very big (1.5 feet across the middle, for most of it), I have not seen the like before in such quantity.

I would show a picture, but, being the technological idioit that I am, digital cameras (and scanners!) are a bit beyond me.

[bulldawg_65]

Sounds like yellow birch to me. A friend brought me a few logs of it and I have been carving lots of spoons and such from it. All of it has a nice reddish brown heart wood. Makes for a nice contrast in your carvings.

[AlexanderTheLate]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betula_alleghaniensis

Says it does not grow here....

Does not look like what I have, the bark is a much darker color. Thank you for taking the time though.