| Antique
Pine HeartPine History
of HeartPine
Antique
Pine is wood from a pine tree that has been milled in some way
and the milled wood is older than 75 years and found in structures
that have been built by man from the original forests of America.
The wood itself will be much older than 75 years, and could be
up to 400 years old when cut and milled. So some of this wood
could have been in existence for 500 years. This is wood that
has been used at least once in a building, so it will invariably
have some usage marks in it, such as nail holes, bolt holes, or
milling marks.
The
pine species this wood is from will be primarily Long Leaf Pine,
at least in the south where we are located, with some other southern
species mixed in, such as loblolly, short leaf, and slash. As
you can read below, Long Leaf was a predominant specie in the
south, and the milling of this specie was a big business. This
important resource was used to build large industrial buildings,
ships, and was exported in tremendous amounts for years. The harvesting
of the Long Leaf resource peaked in 1908, and most of the virgin
Long Leaf pine stands were gone by the end of the 1920's. Regeneration
of these trees is occurring, but the large 200-300 year old trees
of the past are still a century off(if left to live that long).
Antique
Pine is a hard wood, seeming to have become harder with age. Usually
this wood will have some heart, as most of the wood from that
time was milled from the huge trees that had a lot of heart content.
The Janka rating for heartpine is 1225.(this is a method of providing
a rating of the hardness of the different woods in the world -
oak is around 1250; we don't have a rating on 100 year old heartpine.)
HeartPine
Heartpine
is a term that is used synonomous with antique pine, though it
is a more defining term, meaning wood that has some amount of
"heart" or pitch in it. It is seen to be reddish brown
in coloration. It can also be used to refer to newly cut pine
that contains a lot of pitch. So, heartpine does not necessarily
mean pine that is 100's of years old, as certainly newly cut trees
can contain pitch and be called heartpine. Another characteristic
that is thought of when the term heartpine is applied to a piece
of wood, is that it contains growth rings that are close together,
as will be found in trees that grow up in a dense population of
trees, such as an old growth forest of tall pine trees.
A
Different Look at the History of Heart Pine
In
a crescent shape stretching from Southern Virginia , down along
the Atlantic and Gulf coast to East Texas stood an old growth
forest of long leaf pine. This great expanse of forest is now
gone but it has left it’s mark on the history of this country
and it’s people.
Availability,
durability and desirability drove the demand of the materials
derived from this forest. From the cabins along the new frontier
to the floors of our founding fathers, heartwood from these slow
growing forest was provided. To the navies of Great Brittan and
the, soon to be United States, navel stores of great value were
produced,.turpentine, rosins, tars, decking, timbers and mast.
One
of the first protest in the colonies, even before the Boston Tea
Party, took place (the King’s Broad Arrow Act proclaimed
that all pines over 24” on public land and within 3 miles
of water belonged to the Crown and was to be marked with a three
slash mark, the King’s own mark ) when the surveyors marking
the trees were discovered. They were brought to a party where
they were the “guest of honor.” Even the tar component
of the “tar and feathers” treatment they received
was of the pine.
After
the Revolution The US Navy built the Constitution Class frigate
using one piece of heart pine as it’s keel, heart pine beams
and decking for the rest of the ship. Until the time of the iron
ships this great forest provided stores for the navies of the
west.
As
the population of the southeast grew so did the pressure on the
old growth forest After the industrial revolution in the last
2 – 3 decade of the 1800’s there was less than 5%
of that once great forest left. As the forest disappeared there
arose centers of Industry built from them. Great manufacturing
plants, massive warehouses, tobacco barns, and textile mills were
the monuments of the passing of the great forest. And now these
monuments are disappearing , not from lack of quality of their
materials, but from obsolesence of their manufacturing processes.
Replacing
a boom of destruction and cascade of destroyed and now trashed
materials, deconstruction or reverse construction of these links
to the past is a time consuming undertaking. The results speak
for them self. Why the trouble? We recycle history.
KMAC
Services
2631
FL Shuttlesworth Drive
Birmingham, Alabama 35234
Phone 1-205-320-0940
Fax 1-205-320-0960
Email: Info@antiquepineflooring.com
We
Recycle History!
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