[Regia-NA] Re: [RANA-Members] The provenance of wood

[rmhowe]

Douglas Sunlin wrote:
> 
> Kim:
> 
> We bruited it about in our first year (!) and the name came up;
> naturally I had to find out what it is. For those that care, it is the
> main timber in orang-utan habitat. On the subject (wood, not apes,
> that is), has anyone made a business of coppicing ash poles for
> re-enactors? Surely a growth industry! ;)
> 
> Douglas
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/California_Viking_Age
> 
> http://www.geocities.com/baldurstrand/

Museum Replicas talks about having ash poles for spears in their
catalogs and it's mentioned on the spear head pages on their
website. A website search did not turn it up though. I haven't
called them myself. http://www.museumreplicas.com/
They are supposed to have some eight foot ones, OR they did.
Located in Georgia. 

Since I am not poking people with my real spears and I have
not found ash locally in a round form - one sometimes sees
some ash and oak stair rail approximating the stuff, I generally
just go over to Capitol City Lumber here in Raleigh and dig
through their molding shed for straight-grained straight yellow
pine and just stain it dark. Yellow pine is pretty tough stuff
and hard as hell to break in properly chosen pieces. The winter
rings are damn near as wide as the summer growth and real hard.
Once sanded it's a whole lot less susceptable to splintering
your hand in a shove stroke than either oak or ash. 

I'm not sure just what wood they are using for the imported
wheel barrow handles I have been seeing recently but it's got
curly grain and will splinter you if you pick it up. 

Ceiling - 8'3" deducting the spearhead and butt end length.
Just fits in the small van too. I hang them from a removable 
loop in loop at the head end so they don't warp myself. 

No one except basketmakers does coppicing as far as I know
over here. 

Right now I guess I really should go to the hardwood supplier
here with a plane in hand and see how the grain runs in some
real ash. I have a spear, a javeling, and five axe heads to handle.
Fortunately I have a saw, jointer, routers and a bandsaw. 

Magnus


> >From: "J K Siddorn"
> >Reply-To: list-rana-m@lig.net
> >To:
> >Subject: Re: [RANA-Members] The provenance of wood
> >Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:47:46 +0100
> >
> >Whoa there, Douglas! Ramin was at one time acceptable as we could not
> source
> >ash in the sizes needed. Now it has been regularly obtainable for
> years for
> >a tenner an 8 foot length, we have specified it in the MAA regs for
> some
> >years - at least, that was what I thought we'd done. Did you find a
> mention
> >of Ramin somewhere?
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >
> >Kim Siddorn

> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Douglas Sunlin"
> >To:
> >Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 6:26 PM
> >Subject: Re: [RANA-Members] The provenance of wood
> >
> >
> > > Gunnar, I would bet money that the standards in practice are a bit
> more
> >lax. While the ideal wood for spears is ash, an acceptable substitute
> >mentioned was ramin, which is from Indonesia...
> > >
> > > On manręden,
> > >
> > > Osweald of Baldurstrand