Is Sweet Gum A Hardwood

Sweet gum is a troublesome wood to work with because of its tendency to twist and move but the effort can be worth it for some uses.

Is sweet gum a hardwood.

Sweet gum firewood use. 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. Its heartwood is variable and ranges from dark brown to a lighter reddish brown.

Despite the world demand for liquidambar through the centuries little was done with the yield of the north american sweet gum tree. The sweet gum tree attracts wildlife including blue jays cardinals mourning doves squirrels chipmunks and luna moths. Timber from the sweet gum tree is a finely textured moderately heavy white colored sapwood with a light pink tint. In fact sweet gum will produce approximately 20 6 million btu s per cord which isn t all that bad.

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. It is considered a hardwood species with wood weighing 52 pounds per cubic.

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. Gum is a little higher than average in strength and stiffness than many other hardwood species. Such trees can grow to be as old as 400 years old and they can reach towering heights of 150 feet. Sweet gum wood though has been another story.

From professor gene wengert sawing and drying forum technical advisor. Sweet gum should make a nice floor similar in hardness to yellow poplar. It is quite close to cherry a little stronger than mahogany and a little weaker than walnut.