The featured species of the month is European Beech. I discuss all the things and tell stories about this lumber. I talk spalting your own lumber and borax bug treatments. Then a dive into kiln drying lumber and explain the irony that to dry lumber you need moisture.

The Emerald Ash Borer or EAB is devastating the Ash forests all across North America. I have Dr. Jeremy Slone of Bartlett Tree Experts as a guest to talk about this pest and what is happening to the Ash trees.

This episode of the podcast discusses board foot rulers, lumber margins, and plantation management. Ultimately who gets to buy what lumber is based heavily on the demand and where you buy the material in the supply chain.

Today I talk to Kris Burns from Harvest Lumber Co in Austin, TX. Harvest Lumber is getting logs from the city of Austin. They maintain a retail showroom and have a log pickup and sawing service.

https://www.harvestlumberco.com/ or @harvestlumberco on Instagram

I also feature this month's species: Paulownia, Kiri, or the Royal Princess Tree (depending on how fancy you feel)

For my 100th episode it seemed fitting to discuss the long and muddy road of a board. From a tree in a forest somewhere in the world to a rough logging road to sawmill to truck to maybe even a ship at sea. The number of hands that touch the board you hold in your hand may startle you. The sheer volume of time and labor sunk into a single board by the time you buy it makes you wonder why anyone would choose to sell lumber! I guess you just gotta love wood.

This time I discuss the featured species of the month: Black Cherry and then dive into the deep topic of wood in the aviation industry. My guest Alex LaFavre is a pilot and works in the aviation industry and he shares all the fun bits about how wood has been used in airplanes through the nearly 125 years since the Wright Brothers took flight on a mostly Spruce airplane.

Support the show at https://www.patreon.com/lumberupdate. At the Walnut tier you will receive a collectible sticker about the featured species of the month! Collect them all and start now as this month is our first one.

In this episode I welcome Josh Wertz from Good Woods Lumber LLC on the show to talk about his sawmill operation. We spend a good amount of time talking about his vacuum kilns and get into details on the perceived stability gained from a low heat drying process.

Today I'm talking about drying vertically, making a fender, and highlighting Oregon Myrtle as my species of the episode.

Let me apologize in advance for the title pun. In this episode I discuss my trip to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Bros memorial. Of course I find a way to make it about the lumber chosen to build an airplane. Then there is a lot more kiln drying talk and more talk of bugs like the EAB.

Today we talk about Cypress for window construction and other alternatives like modified wood or stave core construction. Then we talk about really old wood and how it holds up after 1000 years like the oldest door in the UK at Westminster Abbey. Then how about deep frying your wood to preserve it?