Traditionally siding would be screwed or nailed in place and usually a tongue and groove joint connects the edges.  Once someone thought to use tropical decking the idea of a hidden clip fastener system seemed almost obvious.  Suddenly you can clad your home with stunningly beautiful wood without unsightly holes from the fasteners marking out where every furring strip is underneath.  Moreover, a clip system will set your spacing for a consistent gap while still allowing some wiggle room for the siding to expand and contract with the seasons.  The clips are secured to the furring strips therefore hiding all visible fasteners.  The finished product is truly beautiful and seems like a great solution.  However as with any new construction method the verdict is still out on how well these systems work.

 The decking boards need to be grooved so the clips have a place to hold the siding.  The issue is that in between clips, there is an open groove that can collect water or possibly act as homes for insects.  The traditional tongue and groove method fills in the groove along the entire length so this isn’t a problem.  Several manufacturers exist that make these clip systems and each have their own claims on how they deal with these problems.  Many of them tuck the groove up behind a beveled edge so the water is not able to get to it.  This solves the water problem but won’t defeat the insect nesting.  Ideally using an insect resistant tropical wood will be your answer here but it is still something to be aware of.  The one issue that still remains is the long drip edge created by this siding that could cause uneven moisture absorption and eventual buckling of the siding material.

Ultimately we think these are minor issues because using a top quality tropical decking product that is already very water, insect, and rot resistant will solve the problems.  Lets face it, if Ipe and Cumaru can stand up to standing water and horizontal surfaces as a deck, then shedding water from a vertical surface shouldn’t be an issue.

On the whole, you cannot deny the beauty of a hardwood clad building and we expect this rainscreen method to increase in popularity and create a new market for tropical hardwoods.

As an engineered material there are known steps that have to be done to create the final product.  These steps won’t vary much from one manufacturer to another to produce the same product.  Costs can be lowered when steps are eliminated; therefore, be wary of any new supplier that can suddenly dramatically under cut the price you have been paying for plywood.  This cost savings is a direct result of something being left out of the product process.

Quartersawn A Face Cherry Architectural Panel Plywood

The HPVA (Hardwood Plywood Veneer Association) grading system classifies hardwood plywood with a letter and number designation that will tell you the quality of the front and back face.  A-1 plywood is the top quality and the grading rules stipulate what defects and/or patches are allowed to meet an A face and a 1 back face.  The number faces will always be just a little under the letter faces so you could also think of a 1 face as something like an A- face.  As you move down through the grades, B, C, 2, 3, 4 each face is allowed more defects.

The letter and number system allow the user to pick the right combination for their project.  If you are applying wall panels you can save money by buying a sheet that has one great face and a lower quality back since that will never be seen.  A-4 is common in this instance.  However, this grading system refers only to the face and says nothing about the core nor about how the face is put together.  This is where it starts to get sticky.

Making a Fir core, Poplar core, MDF core, or Combination core all requires different materials and processes.  Book matching, sequential matching, center book match, quartersawn, or rotary cut all produce different looks and will be used in different circumstances.  You could have 1 panel of each of the above options and they may all be labelled at B-2 sheets but will be dramatically different in appearance and price.  The added time and material loss when center book matching a face veneer obviously results in a higher product cost.  Additionally, some manufacturers will go above and beyond to color and grain match their face veneers but the grade is not changed to reflect that.  In essence it is very easy to buy above the grade.

Rotary Cut A Face Maple Plywood

So if by now you are confused as to what you are buying then rest easy because this confusion is at the heart of the plywood market and you are not alone.  If you have found a sheet of plywood that meets your standards for your specific job, make a special note of the price.  Certainly one will find price variations from supplier to supplier based upon whether they buy direct and their own profit margins, but dramatic changes in price should raise a red flag that you might not be getting the same quality sheet that you need.  All A-1 sheets are not created equal.

When you are ready to buy plywood be prepared to answer questions about how you will use the product and recognize that your supplier is only trying to hone in on the best product for you.  If your supplier doesn’t ask you questions then you might think about finding a new supplier…unless you are the gambling type.

Painted Sapele Windows and Doors

Most species that are resistant to the weather pose problems for paint.  The natural oils interfere with the binders in the paint.  Open pores and grain leave a spotty surface.  Pronounced early and late growth leaves and uneven surface.  So whenever possible we embrace the natural beauty and clear coat these species.  This means you need good quality material with a consistent color and grain pattern that is free of knots and defects.  Hence the higher price tag that makes any contractor nervous when you start adding up the footage required for trim, siding, structures, and decks.

If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time you will know that for every board foot of clear material there are probably 2-3 board feet of shall we say “less than ideal” appearance material.  There is nothing structurally wrong with this wood but it may have some sapwood, kiln sticker stain, wilder grain, inconsistent color, etc that wouldn’t look great with a clear coat.  Most of the time this material gets sorted out and set aside as a by product of providing clear lumber.  This is the perfect wood for your exterior painted job!

This Fijian Mahogany has clear sticker stain which would make it impossible to clear coat.

All of the issues mentioned above that interfere with paint may still exist but any good painter will tell you that proper priming, filling, and sealing must be done for any paint job to last more than a few years.  This work has to be done anyway when painting an exterior surface so why spend the extra money on a higher quality board that looks pretty without the paint?

Like many lumber suppliers, J. Gibson McIlvain doesn’t have an official paint grade product but if you let us know that you are going to be painting the material we will source the proper “grade” to save you money.  If nothing else consider it a subversive movement to prevent all the beautiful grained woods from being covered up under layers of paint.

Let’s be honest, forestry practices in the US during the late 1800s and early 1900s were far from sustainable.  Clear cutting was common and more importantly the damage caused to surrounding land just to get to the clear cut was severe.  We abused our natural forest resource with no though for the future.  Awareness began to creep in after World War I that this supposedly inexhaustible resource was in fact shrinking at an alarming rate.  This was the beginning of forestry management plans and active replanting schemes to try and undo some of the damage cause by clear cutting.  In the decades since many generations of trees have grown up in designated forestry zones to keep the supply alive as building has increased with our every growing population.  Unfortunately old growth trees that flourished for centuries cannot be replaced in 50-60 years and this is a loss we must deal with from our previous lack of stewardship.

In over 200 years of business we have seen supply change a great deal.

Today, forestry science has come a long way and much research has gone into determining how to regrow our old growth forests while maintaining a strong supply to meet modern construction demands.  Keeping a certain number of old growth trees per area is key to maintaining a healthy forest and clear cutting is banned in many areas to keep these forests healthy.  Yes our lumber today does not often come in very wide and very long sizes like it did in the early 20th century but it is rare that our projects demand such dimensions.  At the same time, we are seeding our future success and there will come a time when old growth lumber  will be available again without harming our forests.  In fact selective cutting of mature trees is eventually a necessity to provide proper sunlight to younger trees.

In Canada the exploitation and clear cutting was not as extensive due to such a large land area and low population so many old growth forests still remain.  The current mandates for replanting and harvesting are some of the most aggressive in the world creating a very healthy population of newer trees.  Back this up with a sizable old growth population and Canadian forests are some of the best managed on the planet.

So as a builder, furniture maker, boat builder, or weekend woodworker a respect for wood is necessary, but fear of buying hardwoods and softwoods because of waning supply should not be a factor.  The minute that we stop buying these woods, our forests managed specifically to be harvested quickly lose their value.  The idealist may think that a forest left along has great value and that is hard to dispute.  The reality is that wood is still the primary building material and forestry companies have invested a lot of funds and time managing these lands.  If their investment begins to plummet in value then they will quickly find a way to sell it anyway they can.  If a market for quality hardwoods and softwoods isn’t available then a buyer can always be found for products like paper, plywood, particle board, and MDF where wood grain and consistency isn’t important.  Additional industries will seek the land for other reasons not related to trees and then clear cutting resumes.  Maybe I’m being a bit extreme but with our population continuing to grow, space and building material is necessary.  Suddenly, your local home center is selling Cherry, Ash, and Oak 2x4s at the same price they once sold Hem/Fir.  The quality is low and the moisture content is high and essentially that quality wood is wasted.  The reason that woods like Cherry and Walnut are held in higher esteem (and higher price point) is that there is a market for them in the first place. If you have ever see Walnut used for beams in an old barn you will understand that without a demand these show piece quality woods get used for “common” projects.

If this Walnut and Poplar wan't in high demand we would never be able to maintain an inventory

In conclusion, we MUST buy quality woods in order to protect our forests.  Stewardship and sustainability isn’t about banning logging, but proper regulation and management.  No company no matter how noble and environmentally conscious is going to spend centuries managing a forest if the value of the lumber depreciates every day.  The user of fine hardwoods and softwoods has a respect for the material already created through hours of crafting it.  We get it and we must be the ones who protect our forests by continuing to use them.

Teak isn't just for boats anymore and it's popularity for interiors is skyrocketing

Lumber users have come to expect certain general specifications from their wood such as commonly available lengths and widths. However when talking about Teak those specifications play by their own rules. The reality is that is not so much the tree’s natural limitations but the market driven price point that effects how Teak is available.

Between sheer distance from forest to lumber yard and economic sanctions preventing purchases direct from the source, the Teak board foot price has been steadily climbing for decades. With most species premium quality will always demand a higher price while unstable, short, narrow, and defected boards sell for less or never make it to market in the first place. It is to the point now with Teak where every last inch of the tree is just as valuable and therefore most of it makes it to market in shipments from Asia.

When we receive a load of lumber from either domestic or exotic we expect a certain percentage of narrow and short boards. This same thing applies to Teak but in most cases the percentage is higher. For that matter, a “short” refers to anything under 8 feet long. For Teak, shorts are 6′ and under making the short percentage of load even higher.

As Teak grows in popularity for applications outside the traditional marine use, quality demands rise. Straight, vertical grain, FEQ grade Teak is what everyone wants. This is an even smaller percentage of the normal yield. It is still possible to get this high quality but a larger overall volume must be purchased to meet the needed yield of FEQ, long, and wide Teak that many builders and designers request. As demand rises, logs getter smaller yielding less FEQ quality Teak. This is the one natural limitation behind all this. However, the market value of the logs has grown despite the lower percentage of FEQ contained in each log.

Quartersawn, straight grain is in high demand like in this Teak door.

What does this all mean? Stop buying Teak? Not at all! The US market needs to be aware that there is a lot of Teak available that is not 12 feet long and 8″ and wider. These sizes will be sold at an even higher premium because of the volumes required to glean out these specifications. Teak specifications in general are small and shorter that other species so the designer or builder creating the specifications for their project will reap rewards by working with a 6 foot length and 6″ and under width. Anytime, more of the log can be used, the less waste is created meaning less stock has to be absorbed by the rest of the log.

Call this value engineering or just good sense, but the savvy user will get a better product at a better price by understanding how these specifications vary for Teak.

It was a few weeks ago when one of the jolliest people you have ever heard called in.  He stated that he had an exterior project he was building that would be subjected to all manner of weather conditions and massive temperature swings all in one night. He wanted the entire piece to be built from wood, some of it would be painted, some would be steam bent, and he was building the entire thing with hand tools. He was adamant that the species used be strong enough to take a beating yet very light weight. He went on to say that he has built this same project every year for as long as he can remember because it never holds up to the stresses of his “deliveries”. We tried to ask some questions about the nature of the project and what he was delivering but he was very evasive on this point.  He said something about “believing is seeing”?

This was going to be a challenge but at the same time not knowing what he was building would give us the chance to examine strictly the demands to be placed on the wood and not let our decision be clouded by tradition. We asked a few more questions to qualify his statements and rank their importance.  These were the conditions that we needed to satisfy:

• exterior grade with wide climate swings over a 24 hour period
• direct exposure to snow, ice, rain, heat, and humidity
• strong and resistant to great stress (hard landings, friction, “air pockets”??)
• good for steam bending
• Takes paint well but looks nice in a natural state and goes with red
• light weight (apparently, if the wood is heavier he has the ability to add more “thrust”)

So it was obvious to us that we were dealing with some kind of vehicle here and from the temperature, durability, and weight requirements we assumed he was building a wooden air craft of some sort.  The steam bending thing was a bit different but I knew we could figure it out.

Here is a homemade steam box used for bending wood

Though not first on the list, steam bending should be considered first.  Kiln dried lumber is terrible for steam bending.  The drying process will set the lignin fibers and they lose some elasticity.  Green wood is best and air dried is a second choice.  Straight grain is a big deal, too since any fibers that “run out” along the edge are prone to splintering during the bend.  That being said we assembled a list of the species we can get green and air dried.  Fortunately all of our domestic species are qualified for this as well as a few exotics. The best species to consider here would be an open pored wood that has some room for the compression that happens during bending.  White Oak, Red Oak, and Ash come to mind, but Beech and Maple will also work despite their closed pore structure.  Softwoods do not steam bend well at all so we need to avoid those.

The painting aspect is not a major concern as most woods will take paint readily and can always be prepped with a wash coat of an oil based or shellac based primer.  Exotic woods can cause problems here with their abundance of natural oils so we are going to recommend a domestic species.

The biggest concern looks to be the extreme temperature and moisture changes.  No wood is going to remain stable when the temperature and humidity rise drastically then plummet just as quickly.  The key here is to focus on a species that resists rot due to exposure to water.  A good exterior species will stand up to the water and good construction techniques will take care of the movement issue.  If we start with a green wood and build this vehicle using joinery that allows for freedom of movement and exploits the expansion and contraction of the wood to make the joints stronger then the temperature changes won’t be an issue.  Mortise and tenon joinery using dry wood for the tenons and wet wood for the mortises will ensure that the mortise will shrink and the tenon expand forever locking the joint together no matter what the external moisture and temperature stresses will be.  Additionally, pegs and wedges would be a good idea to provide a mechanical joint instead of relying on the friction and glue.  If the wood is not water resistant however all bets are off.

I’m glad the light weight factor is last on the list because most of the lighter species are immediately disqualified do to their poor exterior ratings and inability to be bent.  However, sticking with a domestic species means we will be somewhere in the 2.5 – 3.5 lbs/board foot range whereas most exotics can double that weight.

Very strong, bends well, stable, attractive, White Oak seems the obvious choice

So…considering all of the above and factoring in a wood that is strong yet flexible to deal with stresses of flight and landing we come to Beech, White Oak, and Ash.  All 3 of these look great with a natural finish and will complement his red paint job, too.  However with the emphasis on extreme exterior exposure, White Oak is the only choice.

White Oak has an internal closed pore structure called Tylose that essentially dams up the cell walls either locking in or locking out moisture.  This makes it highly water resistant.  It is hard and very strong, yet the open grain makes it one of the best woods for steam bending.  We can get it in any state from green to kiln dried very easily and the tree grows large and widespread so good length and width is available.  When quartersawn the wood is very stable and highly attractive so we are recommending a percentage of quartersawn to the parts of this project that need to be most stable.  We think that White Oak will handle every situation this customer can throw at it and to top it all off, it hand planes well and smells great while working it.

Our customer took our advice and placed his order for White Oak.  He complicated things a bit further by giving us a delivery address way, way, way up in Northern Canada saying that he would pick it up from there to take to his workshop even further north.  Our driver said that the customer, Nick, showed up out of nowhere and had an entire crew of helpers with him to load up the Oak.  He said his helpers were all really short, but also admitted that at that latitude this time of year it was pretty dark and he couldn’t see real well.  Finally as Nick and his crew pulled away, the sound of jingle bells was on the air.  Who knows what that was about. Nick was thrilled with the quality of his wood and promised he would see us all again at the end of December.  I’m guessing he will have another order.

Anyway, Merry Christmas from all of us at J. Gibson McIlvain and bring us your tough wood selection problems.  We live for this stuff!

20" wide Pine flooring

Lately we have been running into a lot of wide plank flooring jobs.  In high end remodeling and construction, these 12″ and wider planks are a popular choice.  Proportionally speaking, the bigger the room the wider the planks need to be to look “right”, unless you are looking for that bowling alley appearance.  The latest trend in reclaimed flooring and rustic flooring also plays nicely into this as many wide boards are available for a truly one of a kind appearance.  There is no question, these wide plank floors are stunning but they can be tricky to obtain and mill, and movement issues mean extra care must be taken to ensure a flat floor over time.

Choose Your Wood Species Wisely

When you start dealing with 12″ and wider flooring your choice of wood species becomes limited.  While just about every species will yield a board over 12″ wide, getting the quantity needed for a large floor is the issue.  Even if the quantity can be had, it will require picking from many different trees resulting in a difficult color and grain match.  Make sure you or your client prepare for some inconsistency in appearance or you are prepared to apply a finishing technique that will color and blend the boards together.  A good example of this is Walnut flooring.  Walnut is a very popular species and who doesn’t love the deep chocolate tones and pleasing grain patterns.  The issue is that Walnut is not a very hearty tree and you are lucky if you can get 1 or 2 good wide boards at a time.  Moreover it is prone to a lot of defects so clear lumber is even harder to get in wide widths.  As a rustic flooring product it would be easier to deal with, but the width issue remains.  Finally, shorter lengths of flooring is a necessity in order to get the width you need.  We often recommend Wenge as an alternative for a dark colored floor as wide planks are much easier to obtain.  Alternatively, a stain application may be your solution.  Regardless, additional work/cost will be necessary due to inadequacies of the chosen species.

Milling with Movement in Mind

Notice the center pith and quartered growth rings on the edges

By it’s very nature, a wide plank usually is a complete cross section of a tree.  The boards are flatsawn for the maximum width yield.  Additionally the wider boards come from near the center of the tree to take full advantage of the total trunk diameter.  This means you will get two edges with very stable quarter and rift sawn grain, but in between you will have the highly volatile pith or center area of the tree.  The quartersawn material will expand and contract with moisture changes across the thickness of the board, but the central area will expand and contract directly across the width of the planks.  So in essence this central area acts like a hinge where the outer stable wood will cup around it.  Obviously the more quartersawn grain you can get into the plank the better the stability, but there is no way around the pith area unless you reduce the overall width of the board.  To deal with this, careful drying of the wood is key and slow and steady milling and re-milling to allow for acclimatization of the wood.  Flooring boards are usually joined either by ship lap or tongue and groove.  With wide planks, the tongue and groove is the best option because the groove “traps” the tongue of the adjacent board to prevent it from lifting up and producing an uneven floor.  Modifications to this joint can allow for some movement while keeping everything in the same plane and this is why it is essential for your wide boards.  In the end, careful sawing, drying, and careful milling will get good quality boards to your job site but the real success comes from proper installation.

Installation with a Long View in Mind

Gaps between boards due to seasonal movement

When installing a wide plank floor, you have to think about what changes the wood will undergo throughout the entire year.  The first thing to consider once the flooring is delivered to the job site is proper acclimatization.  The wide planks should be stickered and allowed to come into equilibrium with the room where they are to be installed.  The time to allow for this can vary depending on the room environment and how far the flooring traveled from supplier to job site so consider each situation individually and consult your supplier for advice.  Also consider your sub floor.  Depending on what you have, different techniques need to be employed to fasten and control moisture.  The tongue and groove joint will allow for movement across the width as long as an expansion gap is left between the boards**  Make sure your client is aware that the gap is necessary and it will close or open up at certain times of the year.  Most T&G patterns allow for an undercut shoulder on the tongue side where the plank can be toe-nailed to the sub floor.  This will anchor one side of the board and push the movement to the other either closing or opening that gap with the other board.  If the client does not want to see any gaps then another option is to leave the entire floor floating that will expand and contract as a single unit.  Now the expansion gap needs to be at the edge of the room and can be covered with a shoe moulding.  A floating floor can still cause problems where unevenness and buckling may creep in since not all the boards will move the same amount or in the same directions.

**Depending on the time of year the installation may require the boards to have no gaps or some gaps since summer months are more humid than winter months**

The ultimate solution is to install a humidity control systems specific to the room where the wide flooring is installed.  This is obviously the most expensive solution but considering the investment in the material and the possible size of the room, it might be the most wise thing to consider.  These systems are often used in clean room and laboratory environments where conditions must be maintained at all times.  While conditions need not be as strict for your average household, these systems will maintain a constant moisture level all year around and keep the floor in constant equilibrium eliminating almost all movement.

With so many things to consider, one can quickly see why this flooring is usually not seen outside the most expensive homes, but the popularity is growing and if done right, a wide plank floor can truly be stunning.  Careful planning and above all a top notch supplier that understands wood species limitations, movement, and installation issues is a must.

Wood Species Expertise

J. Gibson McIlvain has been in the lumber business since 1798.  We know a lot about wood, that probably goes without saying.  What’s important is our ability to apply that knowledge to the project at hand.  Our staff of graders and buyers has first hand knowledge of many species from forest to the kilns to the job site and we know how it will look, work, and react to it’s environment.  We use this knowledge to advise our customers and help them pick the right species for the job.  Other times we suggest alternate wood species to value engineer the job making the material easier to obtain, cheaper, and easier to work.  This requires an intimate understanding of the material that can only come from decades (and even centuries) of experience.

Importer of Record

Our President, Gib McIlvain, on a Teak buying trip

Legality of your materials is a big issue today.  So many of the exotic woods popular in the building trades today can be had from questionable sources that put us, our customers, and our customer’s customers in violation of the Lacey Act.  As the importer of record, we buy our material directly from the source which means we have full provenance and know that it is legally obtained, handled, and shipped.  We have all the documentation to track this as well.  But beyond verifying legality, as the importer of record we have much greater control over quality of the material since we know our lumber hasn’t been picked over by other entities before we receive it.  We can source unusual species that may not readily available, or specify FSC material only.  These kinds of specifics are tough to control once the lumber is in North America.  You take what you can get in other words.  When we buy directly from Africa or South America, or Asia we can make these requests before it gets shipped.  Finally, and probably most relevant, we have greater cost control and our customers are not subject to many middle man parties taking their percentage of the material

Better quality, selection, and price are pretty compelling features

Single Source Supplier

Ask any general contractor how many suppliers they deal with on a single job and they will likely not have enough fingers to count them all.  But if that contractor is able to rely upon one supplier to handle all of the wood products and millwork, it makes their job much easier.  Ensuring that the mouldings, floors, panels, windows, doors, and trimwork all have a good color match is next to impossible when the lumber comes from multiple sources in various climates and moisture levels.  Then when that lumber is milled and moulded by multiple millwork houses (in various climates) packed and shipped differently at different times and expected to converge on the same job site that adheres to the production schedule one begins to wonder how anything ever gets done.

J. Gibson McIlvain is a full service yard with air drying yards, dry kilns, and a full millworks.  We process the lumber from a green, wet state all the way to a finished product.  We can dry, plane, mould, sand, lay up panels, and even pre-finish your lumber and ship it all at the same time so the general contractor need manage only that single shipment and be confident that he is getting a consistent quality product.

Nationwide Delivery

All of the above features mean very little if the lumber can’t be delivered to your job site.  Our fleet of trucks is always on the move delivering up and down the east coast several times a week.  Additionally we deliver into the Midwest, South, Rockies, and West Coast.  Maintaining our fleet means we control delivery schedules, we control packaging, and we can give our customers assurances that the material will be delivered on time and in great condition.

Really when you think about it, this is one of the most important parts considering great quality can be damaged during transit, late deliveries will eat up any cost savings made on materials, and a single source supplier that can’t get you the product means multiple aspects of your build are now in jeopardy.

How Can We Help You?

What did I miss?  What do you look for in a lumber supplier?  What can we do better?  We are truly passionate about wood at J. Gibson McIlvain and we want that passion to transfer to our customers in the form of quality products at good prices, delivered when and where you need it.  We want to be your value added partner throughout the project from design and planning to production.

The Mayflower II built in 1955 is a replica of the original and can be found at Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts.

I thought it appropriate this week to take a detour from our usual topics and share some history.  We have a proud 213 year history at J. Gibson McIlvain, but I want to go back even further and talk about something particularly relevant to this holiday.  We all know about the good ship Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth.  It was a good English built ship made from English White Oak.  English Oak, Quercus robur, is also known as Royal Oak.  These trees grow extremely large often exceeding 150 feet high with trunk diameters exceeding 30 feet.  It was truly a tree which “built an empire” as many British historians claim.  Unfortunately Dutch Elm disease took a toll on English Oak in the 17th century so the resource quickly came into question.

This decline in available ship building timber meant that nothing went to waste.  When a ship was deemed no longer seaworthy it was broken up and used for other building projects like homes and barns.  Although no documented evidence exists, some oral histories claim that this was exactly what happened to the Mayflower that brought Pilgrims to the new world.

Image of the inside of the Mayflower Barn in Jordans, England

The Mayflower was decommissioned in 1624 and the lumber reclaimed and sold.  Some claim that the Mayflower Barn in Jordans, England was the result of this sale and historians have found evidence such as a crack in the central beam and the letters ER HAR.  Ships logs document damage the Mayflower sustained during her voyage to North America that almost forced the Pilgrims to return home. During a bad storm a hull beam cracked and was later repaired with the aid of a large screw, most likely from a printing press.  The mysterious letters could be referring to the name on the transom of the ship that read, Mayflower Harwich (the home port).

Again no actual proof has been found, but there is something very exciting about speculating that such an auspicious vessel has found new life in an everyday object like a barn and that English Oak is still working hard 400 years later.  I have mentioned here that J. Gibson McIlvain is investigating the reclaimed timber industry as a potential new product line.  We pride ourselves on the quality of our lumber and reclaimed timber poses a problem because the traditional measure of quality just doesn’t apply here.  However, the story behind the timber and the feeling of giving this wood new life so it can continue to be appreciate for it’s strength and beauty is something that we and all our customers can get behind.

So whether you are building with 300 year old reclaimed heart Pine or recently harvested Sapele, take pride in your work and be thankful that we have the opportunity to extend that tree’s life and make it into something beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving from J. Gibson McIlvain

Easy Availability

Sapele is a large tree naturally that has a widespread growth range across Africa.  It is common for the trunk to exceed 6 feet in diameter and it has a very straight trunk with little to no branching below 80 feet.  This yields very straight grained, wide and long lumber in great abundance per log.  With such a large resource to harvest from, it remains easy to get large amounts of Sapele throughout the year.  This availability will keep costs down as well as make it a species you can consistently rely on getting for your projects.

Highly Stable Lumber

Sapele is of medium hardness with a Janka rating of 1510 lbs making is harder than most domestic North American Species and almost twice as hard as Genuine Mahogany.  Additionally Sapele grows with an interlocking grain pattern where the fibers twist around the tree as they grow.  While the grain pattern is still moving in the same direction, the interlocking pattern acts to cancel out a lot of movement that is typically found across the grain.  This hardness and medium density as well as propensity for straight grained boles (central trunk of the tree) makes Sapele very stable and thus predictable from the moment it is felled to when it is pulled from a drying kiln.

This lumber travels a long distance and much can happen to the wood from shipping damage to climate change induced movement.  The natural superior stability means that there is much less waste over this journey as well as reliability once the wood is installed in it’s final project.

Attractive Color and Figure

Sapele Plywood supplied my J Gibson McIlvain at the Atlantic City Borgata

Sapele is often marketed as a type of African Mahogany.  In some ways this is true since Sapele is in the Mahogany family, Meliceae.  The issue here is there are many species that get lumped under the African Mahogany moniker.  Not all of them behave as well and they vary dramatically in density, color, and stability.  However, the comparison to Mahogany as an outstanding exterior grade wood that has a rich reddish-brown heartwood holds true.  Sapele is most often used as a window and door material because it is so stable and almost completely rot and weather resistant.  The grain and pore structure is tighter than Genuine Mahogany so Sapele also serves as a great substrate for painted surfaces.  When quartersawn, the interlocking grain pattern aligns to form beautiful ribbon striping that is often seen in door panels and plywood veneer.  The quartersawn Sapele is even more stable as well as stunning in appearance and that makes for a pretty attractive product.

Highly Sustainable and Verifiable

Unfortunately like many lumber species that get “discovered” and become popular, over harvesting can be a problem.  Much of Western Africa ran into this problem and Sapele is still recovering.  Due to greater awareness and strict controls, the species is recovering nicely.  Sierra Leone has created plantations as has Cote d’Ivoire.  The Congo is one of the greatest producers of Sapele and while the area is in political turmoil as of late, the logging companies have embraced strict regulation and verification schemes like TLTV and VLO.  We buy all of our Sapele from TLTV stock giving us document-able and verifiable chains of evidence showing the tree was responsibly harvested from a sustainable area.  This certainly gives our customers peace of mind when it comes to legislation like the Lacey Act, but the level of detail also ensures that the buyer knows what they are getting.  African Mahoganies are often lumped together so many species can be present in a single shipment.  Without careful buying and documentation, one could be getting several species that won’t necessarily perform as well as Sapele.

Sapele is definitely the cream of the African Mahogany like hardwoods in performance, stability, and appearance.  We feel certain that the popularity will continue to grow as other industries begin to recognize it’s potential.  We are so certain in fact that at any given moment you will find 400-600,000 board feet in stock on our yard with a constant stream of inbound stock to be carefully dried by us and prepared for sale in North America.  Whether you buy Sapele from J. Gibson McIlvain or another supplier, pay close attention to the provenance documentation to ensure that you are in fact getting Sapele as compared to another similar species.  It might surprise you how often this is overlooked.  More importantly, the legality and sustainability documentation is included to show where the tree came from.  Sapele is a valuable resource and it is imperative we continue to treat it as such so this highly popular species won’t become difficult to obtain thus sparking questionable harvesting practices.  Always buy Sapele from a dealer that understands the provenance as well as how to properly dry and mill it.  This attention to detail will keep the good suppliers, importers, and sawyers in business and only serve to close the market on those that abuse the resource.