Holly Lumber

[Scott Sallyards]

I live in central Florida and have a Holly tree that needs to be removed. Has anyone used Holly in woodworking projects? Is this something I should save and resaw some planks. Any thoughts would be welcomed.

Scott

[Sam Yerardi]

Holly is precious for inlay. Hang on to it and baby it. Seriously, holly is the whitest wood, and is used predominantly for inlay. It will vary in color from green to white but typically white is what you will see. I plan on buying some this summer. If you can cut it up dimensionally then by all means do it. If you can't find any use for it you won't have any trouble selling it. Guaranteed.

[David DeCristoforo]

"Hang on to it and baby it. Seriously..."

Ditto. If you consider yield of a "typical" holly board (factoring in all of the twists, knots, yellowed areas, inclusions, splits,etc) holly is one of the most overpriced woods you can buy. If you can get some useable wood and dry it properly, it's worth keeping.

YM

[Richard M. Wolfe]

You want to find out if holly is worth anything? Do a quick google on something like "holly lumber" and you'll probably go down and take out an insurance policy on it. If you are going to have the tree harvested the best way to handle it would be to have the wood kiln dried as soon as possible after milling. The wood contains enzymes that can cause slight discolorations of the wood (graying, yellowing). Properly handled holly is bone white and shows almost no grain, which makes it good for a lot of projects like inlays where a very light colored wood is wanted.

[Scott Sallyards]

Richard

I'm not very well versed on kiln drying wood. I thought I would resaw the wood in 1" planks and seperate them with a 1/4" rail so they they can be aired on all sides. Do you think this will work?

Scott

[Sam Yerardi]

Using the dimensions you indicated, make sure that all of the 1/4" strips are the same. I'd place them about 8-10" apart. Make sure you have plenty of air flow through and around the wood. Don't cover the wood with plastic or a tarp but keep rain off of it. You can weight it down somewhat, but I wouldn't use a lot of weight. I would set this all up in an area where the temperature and humidity will be stable for at least the next year, as the rule of thumb is a year for every inch of thickness when air-drying. I would wax the ends of the boards to slow down moisture from escaping or coming into the wood. Even with all of these steps, it's a guessing game whether or not you'll get cracks. The idea is to put it into a stable environment, and let the drying process occur naturally and not try to force it. It will try to equalize itself with whatever the ambient environment is.

[Scott Sallyards]

Sam,

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try I will have to keep the wood in my garage and in Florida we get the humidity. But since the tree has to come down anyway maybe I will get some good wood. If not off to the fire pit.

Scott

[David DeCristoforo]

In addition to what Sam said, you want to weight the wood down as much as you can. Even so, holly can warp like nothing else.

YM

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Scott, I was given a bit of holly and air dried it as I didn't have access to a kiln. It did change color a little but is still fine to use.

Sounds like you mean to process the wood yourself. Before sawing the boards it would be a good idea to coat the ends of what you are going to cut into boards with wax emulsion (Anchorseal) or a couple coats of heavy paint to help control end checking. For air drying pick a level spot and use bottom supports to the the wood several inches off the ground - many people use cider blocks. Then put down a row of stickers, a row of planks, stickers, etc. For stickers any dry material that will take the weight will do. For the white holly I would try to use something light colored like pine or even plywood to eliminate any possibility of pigments bleeding into the holly (sticker stain or sticker shadow). Most recommendations are for inch thick stickers for best air flow; 3/4" dimension material would be fine. When you finish put down a final row of stickers and then plenty of weight on top. As Yoshi says holly is noted to be prone to warping. Then cover the pile with something to keep off the rain. If possible it would be great to use something like a patio or carport to keep blowing rain and sun off the pile. How are you going to know when it's dry? The best thing to do is check every couple months with a moisture meter if you can get your hands on one and for Florida climate I imagine in the 12-14% range is what you could expect air dry to be. If not rule of thumb is a year per inch thickness.

For more detail try doing a search here for "air drying lumber" or better yet go to Woodweb and use the same search terms. Woodweb is for people who do wood and construction for a living and they either get it right, get a different job or go hungry. Good luck with the project - I wish I had a couple holly in my back yard to come down.

[Scott Sallyards]

Thanks to everyone who replied, as always a wealth of information on this forum, I'm ready for the tree to come down.

Scott

[Jeff Mohr]

I got a holly log early last year and milled it out using a chainsaw mill. I then air dried it and worked with some of it this year. It yellowed a bit and had some gray areas but some of it is bone white too. Nice lumber to play around with. Good luck with it!

[Tom Sontag]

It is very hard to dry holly successfully. It is prone to warping and checking, which can be dealt with by sealing and clamping forces. But it is also extremely quick to blue stain, which spoils the white color. I am not sure you will succeed in defeating blue stain in your humid environment, but I strongly suggest you process the log the very day the tree is cut and immediately try to dry the surface with a fan or sunlight to retard the blue stain beginning. Too much surface drying can cause its own defects, but error on the side of too much drying; rotate the boards in the sun and/or move the fan around. Use thick stickers for more air flow. You get the idea. After the surface seems a little dry and very small surface checks begin appearing, stack and sticker as usual.

I would cut thicker boards because of the warping you will get and resaw later.

[Sam Yerardi]

Scott,

If you decide to throw it in the fire, I call dibs now ....

[Lee Schierer]

I live in central Florida and have a Holly tree that needs to be removed. Has anyone used Holly in woodworking projects? Is this something I should save and resaw some planks. Any thoughts would be welcomed.

Scott

Holly is a nice white wood as others have said. I was given a piece from a fellow woodworker in KY. I've used small amounts in two projects.


and



The wood was air dried. The piece I was given had little warp or twist and relatively few knots. It is a straight grained easy to work wood. It cut without burning.

[gato markham]

I have been trying to find a wild branch to see if it glowed under black light maybe something for halloween!