Crepe Myrtle???

 

Fifty Foot Crepe Myrtle

This Doug's Diversion strays from my normal genealogy and revolutionary war topic to a random diversion...woodworking.

Last winter, I decided it was time.  We had a crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) that had been planted too close to the house some forty years ago. (I counted 43 rings.) The house was built 45 years ago, so it may have been part of the original subdivision plantings.

In any case, this tree was dropping buds and flowers on the roof that were difficult to blow off if I didn't get to it before a rain. Normally, crepe myrtles are somewhat short bushy trees topping out around 25 feet tall or so.  But this one was a giant! After I cut it down, I measured it at 50 to 55 feet tall.

I contacted a friend that owns a mill to ask if he wanted any of the lumber.  His reaction - "Crepe Myrtle! You can't get lumber out of that!"  I said, "It has a four-foot trunk section that is almost two feet across." He said, "huh!" and agreed to take it, mill it, and see if it would sell. To date he has had few takers.

Milling the Myrtle

Now I am far from an accomplished woodworker. Dad did some home repairs, electronic, and mechanical work when I was growing up - but no woodworking.  My granddad and his father had been carpenters; but I had never had any hands-on instruction from them.  And...I never took woodworking in school. My first attempt at any woodworking was refinishing a crib for my daughter before she was born. (It doesn't meet current safety standards or the emerging standards of the time --- oops! She survived anyway.) I designed and built some bookshelves for children's books. I designed and built a couple functional, but ugly, corner desks.  I've refinished some chairs and a chest of drawer. I built an end table, a military coin rack, and a few other small projects. 

You add to minimum experience and lack of training to my propensity for not putting out cash for the latest gadgetry (In other words, I have a circular saw, a drill, a sander, a chop saw, sponge brushes made from foam packing egg crates, and some hand tools.) and a bit of impatience and you can get some rough end products. 

This crepe myrtle, though, captured my attention.  It is a medium hard and medium dense wood, but it easily sands to a very fine smooth and uniformly even surface. While little talked about, it is a highly versatile wood. What I found most interesting about crepe myrtle is its tiger striping pattern that shows up throughout the wood. 

Since the tree had been part of the house since its earliest days - I decided it needed to have a piece of furniture in the house that was made out of the wood. I had built two end tables out of sinker cypress some years before. One of them, however, I was never satisfied with. I decided to make a second end table out of the crepe myrtle wood. I got the mill owner to help me by running some of the rough-cut boards through a surface planer.  I then joined three boards to make the top and with a circular saw (not a table saw or a band saw) cut some veneer strips to cover up some "carpentry cheating" I had done to attach the unmilled legs more easily. 

I finished the whole project off with some simple polyurethane finish. 

End Table made of Crepe Myrtle Boards and Logs

I have some more boards left. One, from the main trunk and several 3x3 post-like pieces from the trunk.  I may use them to do another end table - but if I do one of them will have to be sold or given away, because I'm out of room for end tables.