Best timber for stemples?

[AR]

Split timber doesn't cut the fine structure of xylem and phloem, so less chance for water ingress... Think it's called frown or thrown... Can last a lot longer.
My mate in the wood working industry says...

"The answer is elm the second best is one of the oaks the old miners used the whole limb of oak but reaved the trunk of elm the thin boards were used for leats & barrows pitch pine was used for rail lines as it is soft enough to bend round corners and resistance enough against rot when soaking wet but does not splinter like oak & elm which is a problem with bare footed children☹️"

Probably frown, derived from "froe" which is the tool used to split timbers.

Although elm is hard to find these days, I would have thought by now there would have been some regeneration from the ones that were resistant to Dutch Elm disease - Rackham in his "History of the English Countryside" suggested that it was a cyclical disease that had affected elms before, but the 1970s incidence was particularly bad. Possibly there hasn't been much deliberate replanting of elms since as there isn't the demand for the timber there once was?

Yew - shame you weren't looking five years ago, Phil - Rod cut a yew tree down in his garden and I could have got you a load of limb timber at that point. Yew timber does tend to be in demand for wood turning and other craft uses, hence why it would be unusual to find stemple-sized bits for sale

 

[pwhole]

Yew - shame you weren't looking five years ago, Phil - Rod cut a yew tree down in his garden and I could have got you a load of limb timber at that point. Yew timber does tend to be in demand for wood turning and other craft uses, hence why it would be unusual to find stemple-sized bits for sale

My parents have a yew in their garden that's about 4m tall, but it is somewhat decorative, and I doubt they'd want me hacking some branches off. My hickory stemple's come up lovely after a few coats of linseed oil, but looking that one up, it's not that good at rot-resistance long-term, and probably would be quite expensive too, though at least they are easily available as pickaxe handles, etc.

 

[topcat]

^^^ as above, greenheart if you can find it.

But as an ex cabinetmaker I'd rather not see decent timber wasted down a mine. Use scaff.....

 

[AR]

My parents have a yew in their garden that's about 4m tall, but it is somewhat decorative, and I doubt they'd want me hacking some branches off.

There were also a load of yew trees taken down in the Botanical Gardens about three years back, but I wasn't able to snaffle any of the timber before it was all removed unfortunately!

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I can't advise on which wood or whatever, but it strikes me that part of what makes it the best is what you can actually acquire.

This may only be relevant to shorter bits, but wood yards are just going to re-sell and if something arrives damaged they can probably return it, but if you have a manufacturer, you never know they might have something that didn't look right or didn't get used, maybe shorter bits you could get cheapish, dunno the strength of this https://www.kedel.co.uk/mixed-plast...-without-point-100mm-x-100mm-hanit-ultra.html but maybe you could sweet talk them into selling cheap short bits they couldn't use when making fences and park benches etc This example the company is in Burnley but you might find nearer?

 

[tomferry]

Let me no the minimum length required I have some cracking oak lorry bearers.