# american vs. chinese elm



## greg4269ub (Sep 1, 2009)

my father has a property full of what we have known as chinese elm. the only difference i can decipher between the american and chinese elm is the size of the leaves. there are 6 trees that he needs removed from his property they range from 12 to 18 in dia. i was planning on praticing on those trees with my new saw when it is delivered. any sugestions on this elm type and how to mill em so i can use the lumber for some furniture project?


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

Milling Chinese elm is easy, a mix of 4/4-a little 6/4 and some 8/4. It's pretty wood really. It is a little more difficult to dry. It likes to move (cup, twist) so it should be weighed down in the stack. And even though it has interlocking grain like all the elms it will split more readily than the others drying also. But heck yes, they will make great logs to practice on. Truth be told that is the first hardwood I milled when I got mine because they are so available as urban logs. There were many neat woodworking projects that came out of those first few logs. :yes:


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

Greg - I've completed two projects from what I was told is "red elm", which I suspect is the same as Chinese elm but I'm not certain. It is very pretty stuff, but does like to move some. I let it acclimate well, then milled it slightly over sized, then let it acclimate for another day or two before going to final dimensions. This seems to cut down on the movement later. 



















Good luck!


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## greg4269ub (Sep 1, 2009)

sweet it looks awesome!! i am looking forward to building somthing from the trees i used to clime as a kid. one of the trees i plan on cutting down used to hold up one side of my childhood tree fort. i can't wait til the lumber is dry... oh what fun.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

greg4269ub said:


> . . . . one of the trees i plan on cutting down used to hold up one side of my childhood tree fort . . . .


Make sure to have plenty of extra blades on hand when you mill it. 

I cut up a sycamore right before dark last night that had barbed wire hanging out of it in several places. I put on an old blade, sawed through the center of the tree, and wire, very slowly, and quartered it. I cut it all up in 5/4 instead of 4/4 since I knew the lumber would be *very* wavy. I actually went through 3 of my old blades before I got through. 

Sometimes you want the lumber bad enough, you'll cut through the metal to get it. :yes:


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## Julian the woodnut (Nov 5, 2008)

I had an American elm milled last fall and there was two eyehooks 8" in from the outside of it. It seems that about 30-50 years ago there was a clothesline strung up to it and the tree just grew right around them. I've finished a few small projects with the elm, and am in the process of building a new computer desk out of it. The wood finished beautifully. I used amber shellac followed with beeswax and it came out really close in color to the white oak furniture I built using the same finish. As for the stability issues stated about elm, I have has nothing but great results with it so far. I have 18"-21" wide boards that have no end checking in them and almost no warping after slowly drying them in my solar kiln during the winter months.


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## dirtclod (May 7, 2008)

You'll find some pictures of Chinese elm about 3/4 the way down this page http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/elm.htm for comparison.

I'm still working on my elm id skills for our local natives. Sorting slippery bark (red) from American is giving me trouble. Winged and rock elm both border our area and there's some growing down the hill that i can't tell if it's winged or rock.

Last Spring we sawed a smallish crappy elm log a neighbor rescued from a ditch. It had layed at the mill site all winter. We put it on the mill then kicked around ideas as to what to saw it into. This guy was into bowl turning so I suggested halving the log, then cutting the pieces to lenght for large bowl blanks...he agreed. The character and colors it turned out were great. But I didn't have a camera on me so I told him he owed me some pictures. He agreed. Like all the other times I struck this bargain the pictures never showed up. Oh well...the ones that got away.


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