Testing Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine

Green property testing began in mid March and was completed on May 11th.  Kiln drying (to get to 12% moisture content for dry property testing) of remaining boards began 4/27/2017 and finished 5/5/2017.

Dry property testing was completed 7/10/2017. 

Machinability testing was completed 6/10/2018.

Treatability testing was completed in August of 2018.

A fifth log was added from private landowner property west of Salem, OR in November of 2018 and testing (with the exception of machinability and permeability) was completed in early January of 2019.

(Last update 6/3/2019)

Machinability Results

Fifty-four specimens were machined on a CNC router following a modified version of ASTM D1666 - Conducting Machining Tests of Wood and Wood-Base Panel Materials.  Materials were conditioned to 20C and 65% relative humidity and machined at a spindle speed of 2400 rpm and a feed rate of 346 inches/minute.  Following machining, all materials were examined for surface quality.  The standard specifies grading for raised grain, fuzzy grain, chipped grain, and rough-end grain.  However, the only significant machining issues were fuzzy grain and rough-end grain. The table below is a tally of the number of pieces assigned to each category.  A sample image of each of the 4 'grades' is shown in the images below. 

Subjective assessment results like these are difficult to interpret.  Some general observations are that Willamette Valley ponderosa pine may have some issues with fuzzy grain when machining. The wood from the different trees and log segments performed similarly with respect to machining, however, there may be some correlation between tree age and machining quality in that results were best for the oldest tree and worst for the youngest tree.

Treatability Results

Eighty-two 1.5"x1.5" by 20" long specimens were pressure treated with 2 common water-based wood preservatives:  41 pieces were treated with alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) and 41 pieces were treated with copper azole type C (CA-C).  Specimens were simply placed in alphabetical order (log segments A-K) and the first 1/2 were treated with CA-C and the latter 1/2 with ACQ.  As such, specimens from trees 1 and 2 were treated with CA-C, and specimens from trees 1, 3, and 4 were treated with ACQ. 

For purposes of comparison, dimension lumber of both western hemlock and eastside ponderosa pine were treated at the same time (as shown in photos below).

Uptake of chemical was measured in grams, chemical retention was calculated (kg/m³), and penetration was measured in mm.  "Full penetration" was considered to be 50 mm or more.  Images were captured as well to show the depth of penetration. Results were particularly promising for the ACQ in that all 41 specimens had at least 50 mm penetration.  The table below shows the results (averages).

Logs for study after arrival at sawmil; logs represent 4 trees (marked by color) and 11 log segments (butt log, second log, etc.)	Dick Flynn, Custom Cut Lumber in Eugene, OR sawing log from Tree 3 (butt log)
Lumber loaded for delivery to OSU.	Kelly Currans, senior in Renewable Materials, preparing green slabs to be sawn into test specimens at OSU
Testing bending strength of green lumber	Testing hardness of green lumber
Boards being loaded into the dry kiln (4/27/17)	Danielle Korthuis, summer student intern, testing specific gravity (6/26/17)
Katherine Leavengood, summer student intern, preparing sample boards for permeability testing (6/30/2017)	Niko Hansen, summer student intern, preparing sample boards for treatability testing (7/12/2017)