[Sca-cooks] Re: Period Lumber was Charcoal

[Daniel Phelps]

Was written:

Well, we'd have to have a definition of 'scrap
wood' first.

snip

The owner of the lanmd would probably
have gone in for maximum profit, which, given the
prices paid for prime building timber in the 13th
century and later (I have no information about
earlier prices - anyone?) probably means big trees
are right out, too, even if they are crooked - no
problem for a good sawyer or carpenter, just
awkward for a mechanised sawmill.

I suspect that possibly a bias based on how lumber is used in the modern
world may make us discount the unique potential in how wood grows.  Crooked
lumber was valuable.  The crooks were specially sawed and used in specific
applications for their intrinsic strength both in the construction of
vessels and buildings.  Hermann Phleps in "The Craft of Log Building"
points up several period and near period Northern European examples. The
following: p. 30 Fig. 42, p. 88 Fig. 109 c, p. 105 Fig. 124/5 and 124/6  p
134 Fig 176 are examples used in one type of application involved in roofing
structures.

Dan