Rock Elm BLANKS sawn from Barn Beams - rare wood species
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Product Description:
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We cut length, width and thickness to your specifications. Often, we will have 3/4", 5/4" and 9/4" in stock.
Rock Elm is a mixture of natural light and dark graining. It's rare composition creates a unique affect when viewing from different angles or in shifting light. The overall visual appearance transitions the natural color from light to dark! Considering it's extreme hardness, it also accepts stain colors very well without "blotching".
Resawn from salvaged barn sleeper beams, these boards may have beautiful nail holes and checking, but limited mortise pockets and peg holes.
Great for tabletops, countertops, bar tops, stair treads, shelves, mantels, cutting boards, charcuterie boards, furniture, and so much more!
Rock Elm was a super hard tree prior to it being harvested in the mid-1800s for barn building. Reclaimed from barns, these beams are often more than a hundred and fifty years old! The natural aging process of timber framing hardens the wood even further. Our sawing process purposefully creates large circular saw marks that enhance the visual appeal but can also be easily removed.
Rock Elm has a great history...
"Today, if you could find a rock elm (Ulmus thomasii) that was somehow passed up by yester-year's lumberjacks, you'd marvel at this species. Before the 1920s, you could readily find stands of trees 100' tall and 3' in diameter from southern Ontario to southern Michigan and Wisconsin. The rock elm's size, of course, made it attractive to lumbermen. Without a use, though, even the largest of trees won't spark logging activity. But the rock, or cork elm as it is often called, had many. Back when British shipbuilders scoured the Colonies' vast forests, they discovered rock elm. Its wood was nearly as tough as hickory, yet wouldn't split. And under water, rock elm outlasted any other North American hardwood. So the virgin stands began to fall, their logs sent overseas. Later, in the dawn of the auto industry, loggers again felled the rock elm to get shock-absorbing stock for wheel hubs, spokes, and frames. Wooden ice-box manufacturing also prompted rock elm's harvest. The wood stood up well to dampness, and scrubbed clean with little effort. Made into farm implements-and even furniture-it withstood abuse. In fact, lumberjacks preferred rock elm over any other wood for ax handles. And why is rock elm absent from today's commercial wood list? The species has been relegated to poorer soils, which produce smaller and more widely scattered trees. The large rock elm stands remain history." - Wood Magazine
Rock Elm is virtually extinct in the grove form due to it's unique characteristics which resulted in massive harvests at the turn of the century for the shipping and automotive industries, and the 1970s Dutch Elm disease.
Thank you for considering the preservation of our salvaged Rock Elm material for your project! Sold by the board foot, volume discount, price range dependent on availability, market price and/or sawing requirements.
Have questions? Need assistance? Please don't hesitate to call, 920.232.6666 or email from our homepage.
Product Disclaimers:
It is expected that reclaimed material may include characteristic defects such as checking, hewn marks, wane, nail and peg holes, mortise pockets, powder post beetle holes, spalting, staining, circle/band saw marks, etc.
