Is Sweet Gum A Hardwood

From professor gene wengert sawing and drying forum technical advisor.

Is sweet gum a hardwood.

Timber from the sweet gum tree is a finely textured moderately heavy white colored sapwood with a light pink tint. Sweet gum wood though has been another story. Gum is a little higher than average in strength and stiffness than many other hardwood species. The sweet gum tree attracts wildlife including blue jays cardinals mourning doves squirrels chipmunks and luna moths.

As you learned earlier sweet gum is easily identifiable as it comes from a tree that produces star shaped leaves that contain five points along with spiked fruit. Sweet gum should make a nice floor similar in hardness to yellow poplar. Black gum is tupelo has a large tendency to warp especially over small distances so gluing will not work well when the. It did serve as a curative for confederate soldiers dysentery and was harvested during the second world war when asian supplies were cut off.

Is sweet gum a hardwood or softwood. Wide sapwood is whitish to light pink or tan color and is sometimes referred to as sapgum or sweetgum heartwood is gray to reddish brown and is commonly referred to as redgum heartwood with darker black streaks is called figured redgum. Sweetgum redgum is the heartwood lumber name and sapgum is the sapwood name. It is considered a hardwood species with wood weighing 52 pounds per cubic.

It is quite close to cherry a little stronger than mahogany and a little weaker than walnut. However this doesn t mean you can t use the wood. American sweetgum liquidambar styraciflua also known as american storax hazel pine bilsted redgum satin walnut star leaved gum alligatorwood or simply sweetgum is a deciduous tree in the genus liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern north america and tropical montane regions of mexico and central america sweet gum is one of the main valuable forest trees in the. Sweet gum firewood use.

Despite the world demand for liquidambar through the centuries little was done with the yield of the north american sweet gum tree. Such trees can grow to be as old as 400 years old and they can reach towering heights of 150 feet. Sweet gum is not a very popular firewood choice for a variety of different reasons.