# Is hickory worth milling?



## CoreyB (Nov 11, 2015)

I have a lot of hickory and wondering if it is worth milling and do you need any special drying procedure ?


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## Mike Van (Nov 11, 2015)

Unless you have a use for the lumber, or a market for it, it's great firewood. Powder post beetles will move into the sapwood within a year.


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## redoakneck (Nov 11, 2015)

I have a buddy made a hardwood floor with it


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## homesteadeshane (Nov 12, 2015)

I just finished a live edge table out of hickory. it turned out kind of neat

[photo=medium]3243[/photo][photo=medium]3240[/photo][photo=medium]3245[/photo]


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## MontanaTed (Nov 12, 2015)

Depending on the area Hickory is a very popular wood for woodworking. Can be temperamental at times in certain applications, but has great grain configuration and is in my opinion is one of the most fantastic smelling woods out there.


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## babybart (Nov 13, 2015)

A new house I just wired up had installed hickory cabinets and they were gorgeous with the light and dark grains. I made the mistake of showing the Mrs. and now there are some Hickory's marked on our property for me to make into OUR new cabinets.. . Well at least the tops and milling scraps go to the wood pile.. .


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## Eric English (Nov 13, 2015)

That is a beautiful table I love the old saw for a brace


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## Rev (Nov 13, 2015)

babybart said:


> I made the mistake of showing the Mrs. and now there are some Hickory's marked on our property for me to make into OUR new cabinets..



No mistake there really. All's well that ends well. Hickory makes the nicest cabinets I've ever seen.


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## Rev (Nov 13, 2015)

Dried scraps for smoking meat!!!


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## Marine5068 (Nov 14, 2015)

It does make great looking cabinet doors and decorative shelving or tables, bar tops or fireplace mantles.
Hard as hell and great character in it's grain. Of course also makes great hammer and tool handles.
If you have a lot of it, all of the the tiny limbs can be chipped up and bagged and sold to smokers for a good profit.
I use old wood pellet bags to bag specialty woods for sale to specific customers.


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## Rev (Nov 14, 2015)

Hickory makes excellent flooring.







You know I just learned recently, the National Hardwood Lumber Association makes no distinction at all between Hickory and Pecan! They are grouped and graded together as interchangeable when refering to them as lumber.


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## Rev (Nov 14, 2015)

Pecan (Carya illinoensis), is the largest member of the hickory family and grows throughout the Eastern half of the United States. It is best known for its delicious nuts and is the state tree of Texas.

Hickory is our most dense and strongest North American hardwood lumber category. As a result, the lumber and trees have had a number of interesting applications ranging from drum sticks and tool handles to car bodies and kitchen cabinets. A full cord of air dried hickory firewood is equal to nearly a ton of coal. Pecan is included in the hickory lumber category and NHLA graders.
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/fnr/fnr-285-w.pdf


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## Trx250r180 (Nov 14, 2015)

Seems like when shopping for cabinets the guys eyes go to the Hickory ,they look real good in log cabins also .


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## Rev (Nov 14, 2015)

The strength of it is the same whether it's heartwood or sap wood. You don't get that with every other species.


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## CoreyB (Nov 14, 2015)

Looks like I should really start focusing on milling some hickory. Would drying it as slabs be best. I just have a chainsaw mill and can get a bandsaw when I find a good deal. That way I am not wasting as much kurf loss.


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## Sawyer Rob (Nov 14, 2015)

I mill EVERY nice hickory log I can get,






I really like the lumber they give,






Then I sticker it for air drying,






When I get enough logs milled, like in this pile, it get's moved to a new spot for proper stickering and permanent air drying.

SR


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## Trx250r180 (Nov 14, 2015)

How do you like the band mill ? How long a board can you cut on it ?


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## fordf150 (Nov 14, 2015)

I milled up some this summer. Vowed to never do it again. Makes really nice wood but the hickory was just to rough on my cheap mill and blades. Went thru a band every hundred bf or so compared to 300 bf out of a blade used for oak, poplar, elm


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## Sawyer Rob (Nov 14, 2015)

Trx250r180 said:


> How do you like the band mill ? How long a board can you cut on it ?



I like it very much, it's been an excellent mill!

Set up the way I am, I can mill a 20' 6" log

SR


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## MontanaTed (Nov 16, 2015)

fordf150 said:


> I milled up some this summer. Vowed to never do it again. Makes really nice wood but the hickory was just to rough on my cheap mill and blades. Went thru a band every hundred bf or so compared to 300 bf out of a blade used for oak, poplar, elm



Hickory likes to show no mercy to tooling. I've never dealt with truly ancient Hickory, but I watch a salvage company try to dismantle a barn that had solid White Oak beams. At the time he was doing this the barn was over 100 years old. those beam laugh at his bran new chains, he ended up buying carbide chains to cut it so I could only imagine what Hickory would end up like after a 100 years.


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## Dave Boyt (Nov 25, 2015)

Heed Mike Van's warning about powder post beetles. You can treat the wood with a material like BoraCare (basically borax), which kills the little buggers when they chew through the wood. Keeps 'em from spreading. I had an infestation from some hickory firewood. Little piles of sawdust everywhere.


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## Cody Colston (Nov 27, 2015)

I just finished building four chairs for a covered outdoor area. I didn't have enough 8/4 stock in the same species for all four so I built each one out of a different wood. The second was from some air-dried Hickory and I think it is the most attractive of the four, with the contrast of the almost white sapwood and the brown heartwood. The informal look of Hickory combined with the refined design of the chair just looked wonderful. I call it "rustic elegance."

But...Hickory is a female dog to saw and it WILL move when drying. Getting the lumber to dry flat is a challenge and I'd recommend lots of weight placed on top of the stack. I spray my hardwood with Timbor when stickering and I haven't seen any indications of PPB's and that includes the Hickory and alo some Ash...both are very susceptible to PPB's.

Hickory is also the most difficult wood I've worked with it being so hard and dense. The chairs are "sculpted" and require a lot of sanding to remove the marks from the angle grinder used. Even sanding with 60 grit in the ROS, the wood would feel like it had been sanded to 320 grit or higher. The Klingspor sanding discs I was using were doing more burnishing than cutting.

That said, I am planning another table and set of four chairs entirely from Hickory just because it is such a great looking wood. It's hard to saw, hard to dry and hard as nails but the finished product makes it worth it.


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## CoreyB (Nov 27, 2015)

Cody Colston said:


> I just finished building four chairs for a covered outdoor area. I didn't have enough 8/4 stock in the same species for all four so I built each one out of a different wood. The second was from some air-dried Hickory and I think it is the most attractive of the four, with the contrast of the almost white sapwood and the brown heartwood. The informal look of Hickory combined with the refined design of the chair just looked wonderful. I call it "rustic elegance."
> 
> But...Hickory is a female dog to saw and it WILL move when drying. Getting the lumber to dry flat is a challenge and I'd recommend lots of weight placed on top of the stack. I spray my hardwood with Timbor when stickering and I haven't seen any indications of PPB's and that includes the Hickory and alo some Ash...both are very susceptible to PPB's.
> 
> ...



I would love to see some photos of your chairs.


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## Cody Colston (Nov 28, 2015)

CoreyB said:


> I would love to see some photos of your chairs.


If it quits raining here, I'll try to get some pics.

Update: I put a pic of the Walnut chair I just finished in the thread "What are you building with your milled wood." It's still raining here and the other chairs and table are already outside under the pool cabana where they will live.


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## chads (Dec 9, 2015)

A friend of mine tried to plane some old barn hickory but it rounded the edges of the planer blades so they had to give up.
chad


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