Q.
I have some logs given to me and they called them sweetgum. They look like cottonwood. My question: How good is it as lumber, and how hard is it to dry? We are building a solar kiln; can we use it to side the kiln?
I have found sweetgum to be a beautiful wood which I have no trouble selling. My first experience with it was sawing and air drying very wide boards. The wood did move quite a bit, making "normal" use sort of impossible. We were able to get wainscoting from it by resawing on the bandmill and cutoff saw before planing. The wood takes a finish beautifully.
I am told that during WWII, most of the black walnut was going into gunstocks, so sweetgum was used in its place. The wood has held up very well; it is in a room that gets direct sun and is also heated by a masonry heat sink. In spite of the normal shrink/swell cycles, the gum has remained without warp.
