Doug,

Thanks for your quick response. I am encouraged by your comments and
picture. I'm going to try harvesting and drying some sycamore so I can
try working with it. Thanks again.

Doug
Doug Miller wrote:
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)

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