Sycamore. what's the timber like?

[skuthorp]

I have a larger Sycamore tree in my yard that has to come down. What is the timber like? Any good for turning or boat bits. Info would be appreciated.
Sku.

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

I have no idea but I do know that if it were a real good wood for boatbuilding we would have been reading about it over the ages. I can't think of one reference to it.

Having said that it could be that it is a good wood for accent pieces throughout a boat. I used Padouk for accents to great effect. It happens to be a good one for boatbuilding (or so I'm told) too but I used it for knees, centerboard case top and accents. It is VERY dark burgundy.

[Tom Lathrop]

Sycamore is a good wood and serves multiple uses. It is even used for railroad ties and fence posts so it must be durable. It's ot particularly pretty so it often gets a fake finish for furniture and house trim work. I have seen some that had beautiful figured grain, much like curly maple. I think that was quarter sawn to show ray figure. I find it to be stable and easy to work.

[mic]

Hi Skuthorp, havent spoken to ya since befor the Williamstown boat show, how's it going? any way, there's a few different types of Sycamore tree species, standard, satin, silver, and pink. Standard being the softest and lightest at ADD "air dryed density"(600kg per m3) and pink being the hardest at ADD (700 kg m3) that puts it in the base hardwood catagory, similar to vic ash and alike. Shrinkage is about 2% radial and 4% tangential, it's very easy to work, glues well and is great for carving, turning and steam bending (only on straight grained members though) but the heartwood is not suffiently durable for external use, sapwood is not suseptible to lycid borers, but may suffer Anobium borer attack. Mechanical properties, S5 and SD6 and be carefull when drying, it gets Bluestain. smile.gif

[win_wood]

I'll second the quartersawn figure. I milled up a couple of small logs a few years ago and the figure in the quartersawn is a consistent ribbon stripe. Not sure how to finish it though to make the figure stand out.

[Bruce Hooke]

Sycamore has been discussed a number of times in Fine Woodworking. If you go to the online index (http://www.taunton.com/cgi-bin/artresult-fw.cgi) for Fine Woodworking and do a search on Sycamore it will give you the issues and page numbers. Issue 110 looks especially good -- it has two articles devoted to Sycamore.

Wait a minute. I just registered that you are in Australia. In the US, our native sycamore (platanus occidentalis) grows throughout the eastern US. HOWEVER, sycamore maple (acer pseudoplatanus) is native to Europe and widely planted in the Northeastern US. So, just in the US we have two totally unrelated trees both called "sycamore". In Australia neither of these trees is native and I'm guessing the sycamore maple would be the more likely "import" to your area, whereas around here (and in Fine Woodworking) "sycamore" usually refers to our native sycamore. The two have similar leaves but the seeds are VERY different. Sycamore maple has classic maple seeds -- small winged seed pods that hang down in pairs. The other sycamore (our native one) has round nutlike seeds about 1" in diameter. Of course there could be yet another tree species in Australia that is also referred to as "sycamore"!
Sycamore maple is, I believe, also referred to as "European Sycamore".

The curly form of sycamore maple is highly prized for fancy veneer work and suchlike:
http://www.fisherharps.com/Curly%20Sycamore.jpg

In the non-curly form sycamore maple is not as exicting a wood, but it is not without merit:
http://www.staffsmarq.freeserve.co.uk/misc/veneers/sycamore.jpg

American sycamore is quite pretty. You can see a picture here (http://www.cypresswoodworks.com/Sycamore.html) (they are blocking links to the image).

P.S. I just re-read Mic's post and it sounds like you may have a totally different set of "sycamores" down your way...

[ 12-10-2004, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: Bruce Hooke ]

[blacksmith]

Sycamore was (is) the wood of choice for the construction of the heavy wood butcher's blocks-the kind that were used in butcher shops.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Is there not a type of sycamore that is also referred to as "London plane tree" ???

Alan

[Stiletto]

Do the American sycamores have the little propellor seeds?

Grant S

Edited for typo.

[ 12-10-2004, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Stiletto ]

[imported_Steven Bauer]

I've used 'Lacewood' for several projects and was told that it came from the 'plane' tree, which was a relative of Sycamore.

Steven

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Stiletto:
Do the American sycamores have the little propellor seeds?

Grant S

Edited for typo.No, they have round nut-like seeds (or more properly "fruits"). Here's a picture:
http://www.westol.com/~pennwest/trees/images/sycamore.jpg

Sycamore maple (acer pseudoplatanus), which is the European variety of sycamore, does have propellor-like fruits:

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/images/1928n065.jpg

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Steven Bauer:
I've used 'Lacewood' for several projects and was told that it came from the 'plane' tree, which was a relative of Sycamore.

StevenAmerican Sycamore is also referred to as American Plane Tree. However, Sycamore Maple is also referred to as Plane Tree, and as we have seen, these two species are totally unrelated. However, American Sycamore and London Planetree are both of the genus Platanus, so I think you could say that American Sycamore is a form of Plane Tree. London Planetree is in fact a hybrid of American Sycamore and Oriental Planetree.

Now, as to Lacewood. That name can also refer to multiple species -- so far I have come across three trees, from three separate genuses, all of which are sold as "lacewood" on the lumber market, but none of them are of the genus Platanus! I believe the Lacewood we get most commonly see here in the US is Roupala brasiliensis, which is native to South America.

FYI...for those who are not up on Latin naming conventions, the breakdown proceeds, in order of increasing specificity, from "family" to "genus" to "species".

Dang this stuff gets confusing!

[Jack Heinlen]

Platanus occidentalis, American Sycamore, or Plane Tree, is wonderful. We had two thirty year old(I guess) in our front yard, when I was growing up. They were great climbing trees, with branches spaced just right; strong heights attained in short years. We called them 'monkey ball' trees, for obvious reasons.

Those trees, climbing up to their tops, forty feet in the air, were some of my best friends as a child. Holding, strong, inviting. Tolkein's elves would have reckoned those trees good. ;)

From memory, not rot resistent at all. For turning, inlay, ornamental work, as has been shown, the curly wood can be striking and full of light.

You can tell the tree by a naturally peeling bark, which leaves a smooth, muscular, yellowish surface, and by the distinctive seed pods.

[Bill Perkins]

There was a big Sycamore we used to climb in Eastern Connecticut when I was growing up .I know what you mean about their being comfy smooth barked climbing trees .We called it the Button Ball Tree , which I think is a regional name for the type .

[Ken Hutchins]

Any recommendations for wood down under should be made by those from down there also. Having been there I know that virtually everything down there is different than what we have in the US. Heck they have OAK trees that have pine needles not leaves :eek: Yup even the wildlife is different, they have crows that speak with an Austrailan accent, :D don't sound anything like our crows.

[Mrleft8]

Originally posted by Ken Hutchins:
Any recommendations for wood down under should be made by those from down there also. Having been there I know that virtually everything down there is different than what we have in the US. Heck they have OAK trees that have pine needles not leaves :eek: Yup even the wildlife is different, they have crows that speak with an Austrailan accent, :D don't sound anything like our crows.And they have these giant mice that can jump 20 or more feet in a single hop! :eek:
:D

[skuthorp]

Thanks everyone, amazing place this! This is a European Sycamore from your illustrations of the seed pods. In some places here they are considered a weed. Thanks Mic, I shall save as much as I can handle and dry it for future use under the house.
There's a group here who are buying the packing cases from American earthmoving engines, They get oak, hickory, and all manner of woods almost unavailable here. They de-nail and clean it up and have found a ready market amongst furniture artisans.
They have a competition called CRATE, you get a raw crate and a year to produce something. Two years ago they got a violin which now gets regular use on the concert stage, but I dont know what wood that was.
I will not be so ambitious! :D

[Mike DeHart]

Here in South Jersey we have the Sycamore trees that make the round fruits. We call them Buttonwood trees here and the fruits are called Buttonballs. The balls can be peeled down to the stone in the center which is very hard, about a half inch diameter, very rough, and it has a mesh or net like thing that grows around it. The stuff you peel off is kind of fluffy like industrial strength dandelion seeds packed really tightly together. When the buttonballs are good and dry you can throw them at things, like walls or little brothers, and they explode on impact in a big poof of fuzz. I understand that 'round here there are two types of Sycamore. The "native" type that has a very white looking bark and the the "European" type that has a greenish looking bark, like the two that grow behind my parents' house. And yes, I have an older brother.

What we call "Monkey Balls" here are the fruits from the Sweet Gum tree. They are about the same size as the buttonballs but they are really prickly and you cannot peel them. "Monkey Brains" are the local term for the fruits on Osage Orange.