Iron wood, AKA Bluebeech, Hornbeam and lever wood.

Had a 6in in dia tree come up rooted when a dead Ash fell into the branches during the summer. I cut the root off with sparks comeing of the chain. Stuff sure is hard I will say that.
So I do a search to see if it made decent fire wood where this one will end up even if it isn't so auto good.

Lots of information on it but nothing on how the wood is as fire wood.
Any one have first hand experince?


Al

 

Iron wood is great.. Firewood.. Especially in really cold snaps.

 

Are you referring to the smooth bark tree or the kind of flakey bark tree? Ironwood, from what I understand, is hop hornbeam and is the flakey, feathered looking bark. Blue beech, American hornbeam, is the smooth one that looks like beech but smaller and oddly shaped usually.

Either are great firewood choices.

 

Ironewood is awesome firewood. It is right up there with shagbark hickory. That's hophorn beam. Blue beech I hear is good as well, but we just have american beech here. The American beech is great with as well. All are better than any oak.

 

If it’s what I think, I would call it premium wood. Takes some time to dry, as it is dense. I put it up there with black locust on my personal list. Most people do not properly season it from what I can see, at least people living near me. Enjoy it, in 3 years!!!

 

If it looks like this, it's eastern hophornbeam, aka ironwood. It's the best firewood we have in Michigan. Better than oak, sugar maple, or beech.

Too bad there isn't more of it. Only grows to 8" in diameter. Occasionally I'll see one 12".

 

G

Got any

 

Blue Beech and Hophornbeam are often both called ironwood, there in lies some confusion.

If it's Blue Beach it looks like this below... And yes it's good firewood, but not quite as good as Hophornbeam from what I hear.

 

Thanks Fanatical1 .. Here there's little confusion.. Blue Beech is musclewood and rare. Hornbeam, is iron wood.. a good friend who sharpens chains, when he has customers that come back and complain the chain was junk, tells me where the iron wood is and I go get it

 

This stuff on my place will dry nice and stay hard for a couple years laying on the ground. the bark comes off after about a year.

These are Iron wood AKA BlueBeech, Lever wood, Muscle wood and other names. that are standing on our new property.







The leaves





Al

 

That is hophornbeam, or ironwood as it's called.

It is NOT American hornbeam though, often called blue beech or musclewood. It's called musclewood as it kinda looks like it has muscles.
This is musclewood

 

I'll bite.

What is lever wood?

 

Didn't you read the thread? it is iron wood muscle wood, horn beam and Lever wood.

Al

 

Where does lever wood come from though... I have never ever heard that one before.

 

Ironwood has been put to use as sleigh runners, tool handles and levers (hence, "leverwood").

Al

 

Exactly.

Plus some confuse american beech for blue beech due to the "muscle wood" name. Around here, some think that ironwood is just a young shagbark hickory. That's not the case and you can quickly progress they are different when the leaves are on both shag and ironwood. Ironwood's leaves are very beechy, to further confuse some folks. I've got american beech, shagbark, and ironwood ( among other species)all in my wood lot. I'm not complaining about it either.

 

Lots of beech, maple, red oak, and ash up here. No hickory that I'm aware of

 

This particular woods has a couple oaks, a lot of maple and the aforementioned trees. There's zero Ash, and only a couple of cherry. It's all old growth/ mature woods stuff. It's not common around there anymore. My buddy's woods is not even a mile away, and he has zero beech, hickory, or ironwood.