Duane Bozarth responds:


Charlie Self wrote:
...
... Redgum is colorful and far from soft. ...

Yes, but... Not hard in the sense of hard maple, though...

Unfortunately, as followup, I couldn't find my copy of Hoadley last
night...

No, but hard maple is soft compared to some other woods (mesquite and jarrah
and ipe among a large group). I'm not really sure where red gum falls on the
Janke scale, but to quote Max Kline in "A Guide To Useful Woods of The World",
liquidamber styraciflua heartwood "works with unusual ease...with only a slight
dulling effect on the cutting edge of tools. Despite the irregular grain
pattern often encountered, the species planes to a good surface and sands well
with worked edges remaining sharp....Much of the timber is cut into fine
cabinet veneer...."

Red gum is moderately strong and stiff; the interlocked grain often forms a
ribbon stripe.

Wish I could find a Janka chart that included red gum: it is a bit hard to
find, but you'd think that somewhere, some time someone would have wanted to
use it for flooring, so a flooring manufacturer would have tested it. Except
that I think most of the manufacturers run the same chart that has been around
for a long time, with few additions.

Some day, I'll make a Janka test set up and run some less usual woods through.

Not this year, though.

Charlie Self
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." George Orwell