The Carpenter's Choice

The Carpenter's Choice

The majestic Douglas Fir is the carpenters’ choice.  It’s a close relative of the Hemlock trees and is not actually a true spruce or fir.  Douglas Fir trees have flat, soft, short stalked needles that grow in spirals around the tree’s twigs. 

Douglas Fir is a member of the pine family.  It’s an important commercial timber in the United States and Canada ranking as one of the world’s most important sources for plywood.

Second-growth trees have been used to produce thousands and thousands of miles of railroad track ties.  Whole trees were once used to make telegraph poles and telephone poles.     Douglas fir slabs and waste are an excellent source of firewood.   They were at one time used widely for cooperage to make vats and tanks to hold an array of liquids from beer and liquor to chemicals.

Douglas Fir is one of the most versatile of the domestic wood species, with uses that include plywood and heavy construction.   Uses include Flor boards, root trusses, floor and ceiling joists, beams interior and exterior joinery.

 Donald Culross Peattie writing about Douglas Firs in “A Natural History of Western Trees” states that in addition to being one of the most commercially valuable species, it is one of the largest trees in the world.  It reaches an impressive height of 100-200 feet tall on average with some growing to 300 feet and one to a record 415 feet.

Another important attribute is its tremendous regenerative powers, meaning that felled trees are soon replaced with new ones that mature quickly.

“They are also fertile, they are vigorous, they are very fast growing”, Peattie writes

The Douglas fir is the carpenters’ choice because the trees are clear of branches for 100 feet and the lack of branches on the lower two-thirds of the tree means a high percentage of the sawn wood is free of knots.  Douglas fir trees are also very hardy and can live 500-1,000 years.