You might try Cromartie Timber, Strathpeffer. They are knowledgable .... & reasonably priced. They also take the time to cut out curvaceous or difficult timber to best advantage.
Can someone explain elm to me, please?
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
A 1300+ mile round trip might be a bit of drive. 
I like Elm it has lovely figure.
I came across it buying old Ercol furniture in charity shops. They fire it out for pennies, but there are people who love their stuff.
Ercol seemed to have used Elm for all their seat tops and table tops. I find the natural wood is so beautiful I just need to take it back to its natural state and add some Danish oil or Osmo to achieve a beautiful finished product.
I guess this won’t help you if you specifically want a live edge, but I just bought a large Ercol elm dining table at my local charity shop for £30. Its nearly 2m long and nearly 1m wide. The top itself is 28mm thick.
So perhaps re-using and re-purposing is the better option.
I came across it buying old Ercol furniture in charity shops. They fire it out for pennies, but there are people who love their stuff.
Ercol seemed to have used Elm for all their seat tops and table tops. I find the natural wood is so beautiful I just need to take it back to its natural state and add some Danish oil or Osmo to achieve a beautiful finished product.
I guess this won’t help you if you specifically want a live edge, but I just bought a large Ercol elm dining table at my local charity shop for £30. Its nearly 2m long and nearly 1m wide. The top itself is 28mm thick.
So perhaps re-using and re-purposing is the better option.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
It was commonly used for seats, wheel hubs etc. because it's resistant to splitting when the joints are quite close.
Carriers are not that expensive ........ unless you live on one of the Scottish islands .... £28 to deliver a couple of tubes of wood glue......... but with regard to wood, getting a few big lumps of mahogany from Bristol was not that expensive.A 1300+ mile round trip might be a bit of drive.
JimB
Established Member
Couldn't afford Ercol when we were first married but ended up getting some cheap at a charity shop about twenty years ago.
Where I live elm is everywhere as street trees and at this time of year is a bit of a nuisance. A light breeze blows so many seeds around that it's like walking through a maniac's wedding. Then they take root everywhere, plant pots the lot. Lovely wood though.
Where I live elm is everywhere as street trees and at this time of year is a bit of a nuisance. A light breeze blows so many seeds around that it's like walking through a maniac's wedding. Then they take root everywhere, plant pots the lot. Lovely wood though.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
It's probably a different elm - ours doesn't (usually, afaik) spread by seed but by suckering.
JimB
Established Member
I think it's the same but it's warmer here which makes the difference. Ours sucker as well.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
You have a lot of cultivars, possibly more than we have -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elms_in_Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elms_in_Australia
JimB
Established Member
Thanks Phil.
The ones around us are pretty old, how old is hard to be sure because I believe they grow faster over here. However I'd reckon some would be pushing eighty if not more. I'll have to run a tape round some of the big ones.
One reason Elm is pricy is you can get really wide boards. Before Dutch elm it was a common material for seats and floorboards in place of oak. Our old house had floorboard 14 to 18 inches wide some even 24inches, it was cheaper than oak but susceptible to woodworm.
Yes our 300 year old cottage has elm beams and wide elm floorboards in one room, some of which have been replaced with modern boards over the years and just carpeted over so my plan is to source replacement elm floorboards next year.
Isn't that the same for everything tho bud? your table is not for me but I do appreciate the beauty in it all the same.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I had a house which I believe was built as three one up, one downs. Two lintels crossed in one corner, one pitch pine and one of which there was just enough left to identify it as elm. The pitch pine was as the day it was put there, the elm I took out in handfuls.
Incidentally, the oldest known poem in English is supposedly
Elum hateth man
and waiteth.
it can be be treacherous stuff to work on and fell.
Incidentally, the oldest known poem in English is supposedly
Elum hateth man
and waiteth.
it can be be treacherous stuff to work on and fell.
Like the poem. We had an old thatch cottage dating from 1430 and it had elm beams in one room that were 14 inch square section in a cross with joint in the centre of the room, however the tong joining the cross piece was only 2 inches thick!. We decided to put a post under the joint. They were all wormy on the outside, but not in the centre the worm only ate the wetter bits.
Cooper
Established Member
The interesting thing is that as far as I know underwater it was really rot resistant and is why it was used for lock gates.
We still get suckers growing in our garden but when they are about as thick as my arm they die off.
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
That's because it's at the northern end of its natural range here - the Romans are supposed to have brought it over here (possibly to use in vineyards). One of the reasons we had Dutch elm disease so badly is that there is/was so little genetic diversity amongst our population of elm trees, because - as you mention - they're produced by vegetative not sexual reproduction in our climate.
I think that elms growing in Australia will have been exported by colonial British incomers - as I alluded earlier. Australian indigenous flora and fauna are so unlike everyone else's.
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
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