Note: Dave Stevens is the proprietor of The Lumberyard, a source of timber for shipmodelers, and thus knows about wood.I lumbered 126 Apple trees from an orchard this spring. The trees were almost all heartwood with only a thin sapwood. These were indeed grown as fruit bearing trees as they were dwarfed, the trunks were no more than 20 to 30 inches. Now - the older variety of Apple trees in another old orchard - the trunks are 4 to 5 feet long and range about 8 to 10 inch dia. Both are fruit orchard trees. When I cut the wood there is no difference.
The largest Apple tree I ever cut was about 8 feet long and had a dia. of 23 inches. This tree had a sapwood of 3 inches, this was a single tree in someone's yard; its wood was exactly the same as the orchard trees. In my years at the lumber yard I have salvaged 7 apple orchards in the area, as new housing moved in. The tree count is well over 1,000, so I know apple trees.
As for pear, in Europe they are not grown for lumber, they are grown as shade trees along roads. I had 500 feet of unsteamed European pear; it's exactly the same as orchard fruit trees here in the states.
I lumbered a few very old Pear orchards; the Pear trees were around 2 feet in dia. Massive trees. There are still parts of Pear orchards around here where the Pear trees were left to grow and they are massive. What kills the trees are rot and ants. The heartwood of these trees is dark pink; the wide sapwood is cream to white colored. Unsteamed pearwood is harder than the steamed pear. The reason is, if you steam wood under high pressure, and force all the moisture into the wood, it becomes softer or punky.
As far as different types of fruit trees, one grown for lumber, and one grown
for fruit, I never ever in 20 years heard of such a thing. Nobody grows
orchards of fruit trees for lumber. There are different cherry trees, at the
mills they are called tame and wild cherries. Or black cherry
which grows all over the place here. They are also called choke cherry.
Tame or fruit cherry trees have a different bark. Tame cherry has a more
yellow wood, but, as far as hardness, its the same.
Beech logs you have to cut into lumber as quick as you can. the reason is the powder-post
beetle. The little critter will riddle the wood with thousands of tiny holes. So you have to
get the wood stacked and drying. Saw mills will throw a tarp over the stacked wood and
use a bug bomb to kill the bugs.
It's best not to leave logs of fruit wood laying around to long, bugs living under the bark will eat their way into the log within a month or two.
The wood Degame or lemon wood has nothing to do with the fruit lemons its not even in the citrus family. Citrus wood - orange and lemon - is the same and works well as a modeling wood.
Also peach and plum are other good modeling woods. You just don't see much of it because the trees are so small you get very little usable wood once it is dry. All woods have their little quirks cherry seasons very well with little degrading.
Beech warps and twists so cut out any knots while its still green.
Apple cracks the soft maples get a blue/gray mold.
{David Stevens}
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