Old Wood

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103 Members, Created 2/7/2011 -

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From dpskala on 3/18/2011 6:14:09 AM

Tony Pass rims, now original equipment on new Stellings. use "old wood", which as I understand it, is truly old wood which has been salvaged from the bottom of Lake Superior. As an engineer, I wonder if anyone has ever quantified the difference in mechanical properties between old wood and ordinary wood - say bulk modulus and dynamic Young's modulus. I would guess that these would have the dominant effect on acoustic properties. Ideally, one would compare "old wood" with similar wood of the same age which had not been submerged. Is there really that much of a difference?

Intuitively, it seems old wood should be more dense, and have superior acoustic properties, but I can't help but wonder if there is not a bit of the placebo effect at work here.

5 Comments
	gnatman says: 3/19/2011 11:12:40 AM I looked around, and all I can really find is other people asking the exact same questions, but it doesn't look like anybody has actually done the work. I would be happy with either the tests you described on the physical properties of the wood, or even just a well designed double blind study. Either one would be very interesting. But I too suspect that there's a big placebo effect happening there.
	phwill says: 3/22/2011 9:50:18 AM I think I remember reading something about microbial action making some kind of impact on submerged woods, but I don't know if that was based on testing or opinion. As a general rule, old wood is considered superior because of the tighter grain structure associated with woods from the little ice age, which I can buy into. I do know that my Stelling (purchased last December) sounded like a cannon straight out of the box. I don't know if that's because of the rim or just good construction/parts/setup.
	dpskala says: 3/22/2011 10:41:05 AM OK, that kind of makes sense. Still no double blind test though . My 1988 Masterpiece showed up in Dec sounding like a cannon too, and no old wood involved.
	dpskala says: 3/27/2011 5:20:02 AM Does anyone know what causes "old wood" to sink? If I throw an oridinary piece of maple into water, it will float -- S.G. ~ 0.6. How can it get so much denser so as to sink? Is there that much air trapped in it that the water can displace?
	phwill says: 3/31/2011 3:02:26 PM I'm thinking that's exactly what happens, Dennis. Maybe that's where the term "waterlogged' comes from? I do know that when you come across a piece of wood in a lake or river and drag it out it is a lot heavier than you would anticipate until it has time to dry out. It just takes a while for the water to soak in.
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