HARDWOOD RECORD 



Some Important Foreign Woods. 



Ohia. 



The building of a hai-awood mill is. gener- 

 ally speaking, an ordinary proposition to those 

 engaged in that line of work. However, the 

 writer last winter accepted an offer to in- 

 stall a plant for a hardwood concern in the 

 Hawaiian Islands, with the expectation of 

 profiting not only from the work, but from 

 gaining the unusual experience to be had in a 

 foreign country, and of becoming acquainted 

 with requirements for the successful opera- 

 tion of a mill running on a " new ' ' and 

 "coming" foreign lumber material. 



At most of the mills in Honolulu in which 

 hardwood is used the native ohia timber is 

 tlie principal lumber for building and ear 

 making purposes; while the koa, which is a 

 very beautiful species of mahogany, is used 

 almost exclusively for finishing and furniture. 

 It was for the purpose of manufacturing this 

 ohia timber into railroad ties that I made the 

 trip. Tliis wood is somewhat harder and 

 tougher than our American white oak and 

 as evidence of its strength as a tie material 

 I might mention that in a wreck, which oc- 

 curred on the Hilo railroad in which two ears 

 jumped the track and ran for several hun- 

 dred feet, the redwood ties were splintered 

 and broken and the ohia ties remained intaot, 

 two only of them being torn from the spikes. 

 This spike-retaining quality is one of their 

 chief features, while the ties are as durable 

 as cypress when laid, many of them- having 

 been on the ground from sixteen to eighteen 

 years are still perfectly sound. 



The timber, as far as commercial uses are 

 concerned, is practically a new thing, and 

 is a very superior material for cross-tie pur- 

 poses; wliat the future holds* in store for it 

 h:,-^ In lie l(;iniiMl. as it has not yet been put 

 t(i :miv piai-tii-ul uses other than for ties 

 till- the plautation roads on the islands. In 

 regard to its lasting qualities, the fact that 

 ties made of this wood will last from sixteen 

 to eighteen years in a climate that is so ex- 

 cessively moist as is that of Hawaii speaks 

 very highly for this wood. In addition to 

 this lasting quality, the wood has the element 

 of strength to a degree not possessed by 

 others by from ten to fifteen per cent, and its 

 future looks very promising on that account 

 alone. There will be many other uses to 

 which it can be put, among which will be 

 hardwood flooring, as the ohia takes a fine 

 finish, is easily worked and has very fen- 

 knots or defects in the outer portion of 

 the tree. For framing purposes the only 

 objection that can be offered is its extreme 

 hardness when dry, and its nail-resisting 

 qualities, wdiich, in flooring, would have to 

 bo overcome by diH']> boring for the nail 

 boles. 



The timber is cxceiitionally heavy, as some 



ARTICLE HI. 



of the hewed ties we got out for our own 

 road weighed as much as 280 pounds for 

 a 6x8 8-foot tie, which, with an allowance for 

 the over-size would make the weight as much 

 as seven pounds to the foot. This wood will 

 dry out to 4,300 pounds to the thousand feet. 

 Present contracts for the output will require 

 the sawing of 2,500 ties a day, to cut which 

 we are erecting a mill equipped with a double 

 circular outfit and a mammoth edger for mak- 

 ing ties from the 6-foot flitch direct from 

 the circulars, the mills being used for flitch- 

 ing only, while a special trimmer has been 

 designed to take care of the ties and cut them 

 off to lengths, and a transfer carries them 

 direct to the cars. 



Fortunately for this enterprise there is no 

 question of a car shortage to face, as the haul 

 in the Islands is short, and a special engine 

 w ill take care of the product an made. The 

 most interesting part of this operation to an 

 American millman is the logging. These trees 

 grow on top of a lava formation called Poi- 

 Hoilloi, in soil not over two feet deep, and, 

 instead of being cut down, the trees are 

 caught by a cable and pulled over to ,the 

 ground, . with all the roots attached. The 

 tree is then cut into log lengths and hauled 

 to the mill site with ' ' donkey ' ' engines. 

 Part of this method will be retained, but a 

 new system of logging is being installed that 

 will increase the efficiency of the engines 

 many times. At present all the time is con- 

 sumed in hauling the wire rope around to the 

 trees, while with the new cable system' the 

 engine will do this work much faster. 



The land on which this timber is now 

 growing is to be planted in sugar cane, and 

 the object in pulling the trees is to clear the 

 land of the roots, which are piled as the 

 trees are removed. As the underbrush is 

 from six to twenty feet high, it may be im- 

 agined what a forest fire this will make when 

 this brush and limbs are burned off, which 

 will be done as soon as the firewooil has been 

 cut out from the tops left after the log- 

 ging has been completed. 



There arc other uses to which this ohia 

 timber can be put, one of which is the manu- 

 facture of telegraph and telephone pins, some 

 of which have been made here and were found 

 superior to any other wood. But, like so 

 many experiments, there was a fatal flaw in 

 the working of the pins, which developed 

 from the nature of the wood; it has a tend- 

 ency to twist and warp while drying, and 

 the pins were made from green stock. Ohia 

 works easily when green, but is very hard 

 when dry, and no one has yet tried to make 

 the pins from dry stock. One thing is cer- 

 tain, and that is the output of pins from 

 dry ohia will not be more than 50 per cent 

 of the amount that could be made from 

 green timber, owing to the hardness of the 

 wood. The only solution of the difficulty 

 of warping is in drying the squares and 



working the pins afterward, and any at- 

 tempt to turn them from stock otherwise 

 treated will meet with the same objection 

 from users. The wood will not dry straight 

 when cut thicker than one inch. 



As yet there has not been any attempt to 

 make this material into flooring, because 

 there has never been enough of it cut into 

 inch stock to give it a trial. But the ob- 

 jection to red gum was overcome by proper 

 handling and piling, and there is not much 

 doubt that successful drying of this stock 

 will result with similar care. It will have 

 to be piled more carefully than many other 

 hardwoods, and will have to have sticks closer 

 together; but for all that it will be a paying 

 material under proper management. 



Some of the inch boards sawed from the 

 tie logs here were dried in the open sun to 

 see the effect as to checking, and the amount 

 of cracks opening was neither more nor less 

 than in any other hardwood under similar con- 

 ditions. It is the intention to make flooring 

 as soon as the stock now on sticks shall have 

 dried sufficiently. It will require harder 

 cutters than those ordinarily used to stanil 

 up to the work, however, and this one point 

 will be carefully watched. 



The tie question is becoming a serious 

 one, and the railroads have for some time 

 been casting about in all directions for sources 

 of supply which would take care of their enor- 

 mous wants in future years. The Pennsyl- 

 vania has made extensive investigations of 

 ohia wood, recently sending its expert for- 

 ester to the Hawaiian Islands for this pur- 

 pose; as a result it has taken the matter up 

 readily, and contracted for large amounts of 

 stock to be shipped to the States and used 

 as ties. 



Probably no "new" wood which has been 

 suggested of late as a possible substitute for 

 the well known old standbys has met with 

 such attention and been so favorably received 

 as has the ohia. It seems to be all that is 

 claimed for it, and it is confidently e-xpectcd 

 that the years will only prove its good 

 qualities, and perhaps bring out some not 

 yet claimed for it, 'rather than reveal dis- 

 appointing characteristics, as has often been 

 the case with many woods which were ex- 

 pected to fill long-felt wants. 



As to the country itself — while it is true 

 that Hawaii is part of United States ter- 

 ritory — its people and its customs are as dis- 

 tinctly foreign as are its products, but none 

 the less charming. The Islands may well 

 be called the garden spot of the Pacific, and 

 the view of the coast line on approaching 

 Honululu is one of the finest of the kind in 

 the world. The coloring of the landscape is 

 beyond description, and the climatic condi- 

 tions ideal, so that lumber operations there 

 do not entail the necessity of hardships ami 

 "acclimating" encountered in many tropical 

 countries. H. C. Hankr. 



