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--></style><title>Re: [Greenbuilding] Black Locust instead of
Ipe</title></head><body>
<div>Sacie, et al,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I apologize for the delay in responding to this. As David
mentioned, I have been working on this for some time but have been
swamped.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Years ago, black locust was used for wagon wheel hubs,
"trunnels" ("tree nails" for nailing wooden ship
hulls to the beams), occasionally for ship hulls, for insulator pins
on telegraph poles and sometimes for the poles themselves.These days,
the wood is still (occasionally) used for certain parts of wooden
boats but, as you say, mostly used for fence posts.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I have been recommending black locust as an alternative to
tropical hardwoods to companies and municipalities for about five
years. The use of this material in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where I
campaigned for two years against the use of ipê, is a direct result
of my advocacy - as it is in Central Park and by NYC Parks
Department in general.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I firmly believe that black locust can provide an excellent
alternative to tropical hardwoods in applications where durability
vis-a-vis resistance to moisture and bacterial breakdown is an issue.
This includes decks (including the rails), porches, exterior posts,
sill plates, fencing, siding and even roofing shingles (should one
attempt to go with wood, as they did in the old days).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I have been working for some time to be able to provide these
profiles to users. Indeed, I had convinced at least one municipality
to order the wood for their boardwalk renovation project more than a
year ago, but they ended up buying the wood from a supplier that sold
them 'log run', which was not suitable for a municipal
boardwalk.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>There is no doubt that, for many applications, using black locust
has its challenges. I believe these can be overcome with some
application of intelligence and I am working on doing this right now.
It's very important to understand the realities of this wood,
especially in regards to the size of the trees, their tendency to
twist as they grow and the tendency of the wood to move as it's milled
and after. It's an extremely dense and strong material. One needs to
know just how to dry it and then how to mill and plane it - and then
re-plane it! As well, there are applications where it simply won't
work (I have personal experience with one such application, where I
was the first person to recommend the material to the user, then they
ended up buying if from a supplier and using it in an area I didn't
know about, in a very thin profile, with only one screw holding the
four-foot-ling pieces down on each end - not the right place for, or
at least the way to fasten, this material).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I have seen this material in place and performing extremely well
in numerous situations. One just needs to know how to deal with
it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If anyone on this list would like to try black locust for any of
the above applications, please contact me.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>tim keating</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 9:26 AM -0600 11/16/11, Sacie Lambertson wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Tahoma" size="+1">When we
lived in Virginia, Black Locust was the post of choice. Out here
in Kansas, Hedge is (Osage Orange). Both last forever in the
ground, though the latter lasts even longer than that. This
article about using Black Locust which can be sustainably harvested,
rather than Ipe, which isn't, is compelling.<br>
<br>
</font><a
href=
"http://dirt.asla.org/2011/11/10/why-use-ipe-when-you-can-have-black-locust/"
><font face="Tahoma"
size="+1"
>http://dirt.asla.org/2011/11/10/why-use-ipe-when-you-can-have-black-<span
></span>locust/</font></a><font face="Tahoma" size="+1"><br>
<br>
Sacie</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
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