In article . com, "Doug" wrote:

Also having an abundance of sycamore on my property, I'd be interested
to know if any of you woodworkers could share your experiences using
either sycamore or elm for your projects.

Sycamore, when flatsawn, is prone to warp, and rather boring to look at.

When quartersawn, though, it's stable, and generally exhibits really dramatic
ray flakes. For example:
http://www.milmac.com/Furniture/SycamoreEndTables.JPG

A higher-resolution photo that shows the grain better is at
http://www.milmac.com/Furniture/SycamoreEndTables.BMP
but be warned: it's a little over 5MB. If you're on a dialup connection, it
may take a while.

My inspiration for these was a similar table I saw in a photo of the interior
of a Frank Lloyd Wright home somewhere in Arizona IIRC.

I love working with sycamore, though. It's an easy wood to work, the
quartersawn grain is so beautiful, and it has a very pleasant, somewhat spicy,
scent when it's cut. The only real downsides that I see are that it's a bit
soft for any purpose where it could see heavy use, and it soaks up liquids
like a sponge. You have to make sure to use plenty of glue in any joint,
because a lot of it will be absorbed. And it soaks up finish pretty quickly
too. :-)

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.