Axe Men Question

I'm wondering what species of Alder could possibly be a sawlog ? Also what species of Maple grows out there ? signed , "ignorant in Vermont"

Red Alder
Alnus rubra

Pacific Coast Maple
Acer macrophyllum

Red alder typically brings $500-800mbf.....and can bring over $1500!! The high grade wood can be sold for that high price to companies that use it for dashboards of luxury cars. It will take an imprint of any exotic wood.....

I've never sold any to them. First heard about it from wiley_p...

I've heard of a quilted bigleaf maple log that sold for somewhere around $90,000. Only log that ever brought more was a figured walnut..

I wonder if your red Alder is the same as our Alnus glutinosa, very common over here, and has fantastic figuring in the wood. Sometimes called poor mans mahogany, its a truly beautifull timber. Easily grown from coppice, it makes has a surprisingly high calorific value when dry, prooved by the fact that it makes the BEST charcoal. Alder charcoal is what the best gunpowder was made from.

2 years ago was the first time that a logtruck load of Red Alder sawlogs brought more $$ per BF than the same size truckload of Doug Fir.

Crazy... at the Deming Logging Show they auction off logtruck loads of wood. When the load of Alder saw logs came out the last 2 years and they started the bidding at $10,000 dollars I almost crapped! The loads then went for almost $20,000 bucks by the auction end.

Gary

The Alder of the New England woods is complete shyat for harvest ..... although a high grade Sugar Maple will fetch a fair coin .... that's why I was wondering ... PS: no TV here ....

Mr. Sir said:

Red Alder
Alnus rubra

Pacific Coast Maple
Acer macrophyllum

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Acer macrophyllum is commonly known as Bigleaf Maple, never have heard it referred to as Pacific Coast Maple.

Thor's Hammer said:

I wonder if your red Alder is the same as our Alnus glutinosa, very common over here, and has fantastic figuring in the wood. Sometimes called poor mans mahogany, its a truly beautifull timber. Easily grown from coppice, it makes has a surprisingly high calorific value when dry, prooved by the fact that it makes the BEST charcoal. Alder charcoal is what the best gunpowder was made from.

Click to expand...

Not the same, Ed. See Brett's post, he has the correct scientific name. Does sound like it has come characteristics in common, though.

alder is worth more than gold and ganja these days
we send it to oreogon, i believe the mill in roseburg is where the last loads were sent to from my ROW project last summer

Burnham said:

Acer macrophyllum is commonly known as Bigleaf Maple, never have heard it referred to as Pacific Coast Maple.

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Agreed. I don't claim to know the taxonomic classifications of the respective trees, but I only ever here big leaf maple mentioned, never Pacific Coast. Could be a name thing though. I do know that in WA the fallers pretty much used "white" fir for everything that wasn't Doug fir.

One thing about red alder is that it grows like a weed. You'll often see stands of alder blown down by a storm because they do grow so high and so thin. As such, you don't often see nice, big 32" dbh red alder because they never get that big. I did find on though, albeit residential. A nice old lady wanted it out of her yard and I was only too happy to ablige. My buddy and I milled it up nicely, and it was sound wood all the way up to 70' where it was split and got nasty. Total tree measured 98' and climbing and topping would've been a mess with the split in the top, the angle of the tree, and the clutter in her yard. I was only too happy to put it down in one piece timber style!

(Yeah Burnham, I know....fiber pull. That tree scared me so I was out of the cut before I met up with my face, and she pulled.)

nice , i agree i only find the 28to 30 in dia ones hidden in backyards , or protected from wind
cool when they get big

Never heard thew Pacific Coast name before. We also have Vine Maple which makes some of the best tool handles a guy can get, and also Douglas Maple which is around in very small pockets, and if one isn't looking closely will be mistaken for a young Bigleaf.

Funny coincidence, Dave...I just transplanted a nice Douglas maple from right beside my fenceline to a better location...poor time of year for it, wouldn't be surprised if it fails, but it was that or cut it down, so no biggie.

People knock the stuff, but Superthrive works great.

Hmmmm...thanks.

There are so many Red Alder here on Whidbey Island it's ridiculous... I have to date felled some that have been 30"+ dbh. Like was said earlier... these have been in backyards, or protected from the wind.

My grandpa used to make tool handles out of Vine Maple... good stuff!

Gary