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What Species do you
offer?| Eastern White Pine | ||
| Red Birch | ||
| Sugar Maple |
ASH
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 19.9 lbs
Hardness:
1320
Until
the acceptance of synthetic materials,
plastic, fiberglass and aluminum, White Ash was preferred for
sporting goods such as archery bows, canoe parts, hockey sticks, baseball
bats, and snowshoes, as well as more practical products such as tool
handles. It is strong and resilient.
Our area of Vermont is well known for the premium quality of its
Ash resource, until recently being the site of a specialized mill, known
as the Brattleboro Ash Mill, processing
nothing but Ash for the sporting goods trade.
Most
commercially available Ash used as flooring has a strong uniform grain and
light blond color. The Ash
available from Timberfloor is sawn from parts of the tree closer to the
center, giving it a more diffuse and subtle grain and richer honey-toned
color than conventional ash flooring.
BEECH
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 21.0 lbs
Hardness:
1300
According
to research analyzing pollen long buried in ancient bogs and wet meadows,
Beech was the predominant specie in the New England forest when the first
Europeans settlers arrived. It
is a patient, slow growing tree that can survive in near total shade for
decades then grow rapidly to dominance whenever an opening in the forest
canopy appears. Its dense
hard wood makes a very durable floor.
Most consumer products made from Beech are actually European Beech, a light, uniform wood quite different from our American Beech. Timberfloor’s beech has wonderful color variations from blond to rich coffee brown, with occasional surprising highlights of gray and green.
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The
CO2 Benefit Number CHERRY
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 16.8 lbs
Hardness:
950
From
Colonial times, Cherry has been the principal wood of choice for fine
cabinetry and custom woodwork. When
it is first sawn from the tree, cherry heartwood has a light red, almost
pink color. After a short
exposure to air (oxidation) and UV radiation, the color of Cherry deepens
to a deep rich mahogany red unmatched by any other North American specie.
The
sapwood of Cherry, however, is a contrasting blond color, which does not
deepen much over time. Narrow Cherry strip flooring often contains a high percentage of sapwood,
giving the resulting floor a mottled uneven appearance.
Timberfloor’s flitch sawing technique produces a uniformly deep
red floor with wider individual pieces.
In ordering Cherry from any supplier it is important to determine
in advance how much contrasting sapwood will be included.
EASTERN
WHITE PINE
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 11.8lbs
Hardness:
420
Eastern
White Pine has been the premier timber specie in New England since the
first Europeans arrived. Its
straightness and workability make it suitable for a wide range of uses
from colonial era ship masts to siding, boxes, furniture and the widest
flooring available. Because
it easily colonizes abandoned pastures and farmland, White Pine makes up a
much larger percentage of our New England forest today than when today
than when settlers first arrived.
White
Pine takes stain very easily. Left
unstained its color changes in time to a deep, rich amber. While Pine is somewhat softer than other woods, its rich
color and dramatic width make it a perfect choice for any but the most
heavily trafficked areas.
HICKORY
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 23.7 lbs
Hardness:
1820
Traditionally
Hickory is valued for its strength, even today being preferred for tool
handles where extreme strength is needed, such as axes, pickaxes and
shovels. It’s also valued
in the forest as a source of mast for several important game species such
as deer and turkey. The inner
bark of Hickory was essential as cordage for Native Americans.
Vermont is at the northern range of this beautiful and useful tree. As a result Hickory here grows very slowly, even when given its full share of sunlight. Most Hickory available as flooring or kitchen cabinets has a lot of lighter toned sapwood because the trees grew more rapidly. This gives the floor a highly contrasting zebra or calico appearance because the sapwood is nearly white and the heartwood brown.
Timberfloor’s Hickory, being sawn from the inner part of slow growing trees, has a much smaller percentage of white wood and a lot of the deep tan and tawny brown heartwood that is especially beautiful in this specie. back to top
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RED
BIRCH
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 20.6 lbs
Hardness:
1260
Timberfloor’s
Red Birch is actually sawn from a tree known botanically as Yellow Birch.
We use the name Red Birch because only the outer wood in the Yellow
Birch tree is yellow. Contemporary
hardwood sawing techniques have the effect of limiting the amount of the
deep red heartwood prized by cabinetmakers.
Red
Birch is easily the number one you-gotta-see it specie.
The luster and depth of Red Birch, especially sawn by our flitch
sawing technique, seen at right, is unmatched. A
Red Birch floor is radiant and alive looking with a translucent three
dimensional quality and fascinating figured grain is unmatched by any
other specie.
RED
MAPLE
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 17.6 lbs
Hardness:
950
Red
Maple is sawn from the tree also known as Swamp Maple.
It is a botanical cousin to our beloved Sugar Maple.
It has by far the most interesting color and grain pattern of any
specie we offer, ranging from rich chocolate brown, to creamy reds and
lustrous blond curly figure. It is best know among woodworkers as the
source of the best and most consistent Curly Maple grain and, so, is
widely used in fine custom furniture to very dramatic effect.
In this context it’s also known as curly Maple.
Timberfloor’s
Red Maple is a real surprise for most people.
It’s the sample in our showroom that attracts the most attention
and surprises almost everyone. Some people say it looks “mysterious,”
some say “medieval” some “prehistoric.”
Whatever the reaction, it’s a specie that benefits dramatically
from being sawn by our flitch sawing method and makes a one-of-a-kind
floor.
Red Maple is also a dramatic choice for bookmatching.
SUGAR
MAPLE
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 20.5 lbs
Hardness: 1450
Sugar
Maple is the quintessential Vermont tree and an important part of our
rural economy. Every year
thousands of tourists are attracted to Vermont’s famous foliage season
when our forests burst with vibrant color.
Premier in that display is the Sugar Maple with its red, orange,
yellow and gold foliage. The
Sugar Maple is also the only source of maple syrup, one of Vermont’s
principal agricultural crops and a large source of “foreign” revenue
for the state.
On
appropriate sites with deep, well-drained soils Sugar Maple trees
can reach a hundred feet or more in height, and four feet in
diameter.
Sugar
Maple lumber as sold into the hardwood commodity market is graded based on
the amount of feature-free blond sapwood in each piece.
That’s the Maple most people expect to see when they hear “maple”. Less
known, is that as Maple trees mature they develop richly colored heartwood
that makes the more common sapwood look bland and ordinary by comparison.
Only Maples which are allowed to mature past the usual time of
harvest develop this special wood and that’s the wood that Timberfloor
features by flitch sawing the logs from those older trees.
Our Sugar Maple flooring has its share of the even, blond wood
associated with Maple combined with a dark amber to charcoal colored
heartwood rarely seen in other Maple products.
WHITE
OAK
CO2 Benefit per sq. ft. - 20.9 lbs
Hardness: 1360
White Oak has two special qualities that have made it an especially useful specie. First, its structure is such that water will not permeate the wood fibers. That means White Oak is used universally for cooperage (barrels) essential to the manufacture of wines and spirits. Second, the specialized wood cells known as rays are especially prominent in White Oak. When the tree is sawn to feature the rays, as in our flitch sawing method, they display fine lace-like richness treasured by woodworkers.