My neighbor has a row of sumac trees that are about forty feet tall and fairly straight. I don't know how good they are structurally, but they'd be a sustainable supply for sure. Invasive buggers.
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What are your current solo canoes and how do you like them?
- Thread starter Glenn MacGrady
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Holy thread drift Batman!
The Sumacs we're interested in are the Buckhorn, Smooth & Fragrant Sumacs all of which produce seed heads of red, fuzzy berries that can be brewed into a tea & chilled to make a very pleasant pink lemonade facsimile.
Poison Sumac is more shrub-like and produces white berries. They're very easy to tell apart once you know what you're looking at. Incidentally, I know a local Forester who has a variety of woods including a sample of Poison Ivy. (I'm not nearly crazy enough to attempt a boat from that)
A "massive Sumac" is almost certainly Tree of Heaven, aka Chinese Sumac. They're very invasive and not particularly interesting as wood but I may use one to build a canoe someday just to rid the world of one and see if I can render it's existence worthwhile.
Anyway... I have a Goldenglass Sawyer Summersong, a Bear Mountain Freedom Solo stripper (16' 3" version) built from Aspen & Cherry, A John Winters designed Raven stripper in Eastern Larch (aka Tamarac) & Sassafras and a Northwest Canoe Merlin stripper in White Pine & Cherry that I'm hoping to actually finish before the snow flies.
I was waiting to post in this thread until I'd paddled each enough to relate my impressions of them but I screwed up and derailed the whole stinkin' thread a bit (oops... As you were...)
The Sumacs we're interested in are the Buckhorn, Smooth & Fragrant Sumacs all of which produce seed heads of red, fuzzy berries that can be brewed into a tea & chilled to make a very pleasant pink lemonade facsimile.
Poison Sumac is more shrub-like and produces white berries. They're very easy to tell apart once you know what you're looking at. Incidentally, I know a local Forester who has a variety of woods including a sample of Poison Ivy. (I'm not nearly crazy enough to attempt a boat from that)
A "massive Sumac" is almost certainly Tree of Heaven, aka Chinese Sumac. They're very invasive and not particularly interesting as wood but I may use one to build a canoe someday just to rid the world of one and see if I can render it's existence worthwhile.
Anyway... I have a Goldenglass Sawyer Summersong, a Bear Mountain Freedom Solo stripper (16' 3" version) built from Aspen & Cherry, A John Winters designed Raven stripper in Eastern Larch (aka Tamarac) & Sassafras and a Northwest Canoe Merlin stripper in White Pine & Cherry that I'm hoping to actually finish before the snow flies.
I was waiting to post in this thread until I'd paddled each enough to relate my impressions of them but I screwed up and derailed the whole stinkin' thread a bit (oops... As you were...)
Sumac, a famously native tree of Iran, has been infesting Gamma's boat building brain for more than six years now:
Alternatives to Cedar?
A recent discussion started me wondering if I've missed something critical when choosing wood for a strip build. I know that, traditionally, cedar is used but other woods can and have been used as well. I've always assumed that the trade-off (there always IS one) is weight vs price vs...
www.canoetripping.net
Time to queue back some sumac and glue/tack.
Had to look up tree of heaven. Yeah, that's what the neighbors have. Strange name for that evil Thing. But now I know how to manage them...
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/tree-of-heaven-invasive-plant-profile-5184401-hero-a4dfe665b1834698bb29870260729694.jpg)
This Invasive Tree Attracts Spotted Lantern Flies
Find out why tree of heaven is so invasive, how to identify it, distinguish it from its lookalike sumac, and remove it permanently and effectively.
I can get some big logs of that for anyone who wants to mill them into strips.
I have staghorn sumac on my place. And yes, the flowers make a good tea, but my honeybees like them so much I leave them for the bees. Not getting any useable lumber from them.
