Just curious. While looking at the charity rifle thread, one of the blanks that I really like has a piece of sapwood on it. I assume it'll turn out, but what causes this to happen when the tree is growing? Anybody know?

Thanks,
Terry

as the tree ages, the sap wood darkens... it's the "living" wood of the tree, in gross terms..

jeffe

Terry,
The sapwood is actually the outer portion of the cambrium layer of the tree and it is the portion just under the bark and outside of the "heartwood" of the tree that carries the nutrients (sap) up to the leaves. The job of the leaves is to grow and grow and eventually collect with all the other tree leaves in a giant cyclone and finally descend into the gutters of my home. The cambrium layer is the portion that continually divides and produces the new tree and bark. It is as Jeffe said, the live part of the tree.

quote:

Originally posted by Customstox:
It is as Jeffe said, the live part of the tree.

And you butchers killed it!!!

Thanks!

What I wanna know is, what causes trees?

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
What I wanna know is, what causes trees?

Or more to the point...what causes PEOPLE?

Remember...Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate.

quote:

Or more to the point...what causes PEOPLE?

Don't drink and Park, accidents cause People.

since you guy already hijacked this interesting thread, I'll throw my two cents in......why do men have nipples.

quote:

Originally posted by Gringo Cazador:
since you guy already hijacked this interesting thread, I'll throw my two cents in......why do men have nipples.

Same reason women have brains...just window dressing without function!

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?

We might be, if they screamed all the time for no reason.

"Deep Thoughts", by Jack Handey

Its good to know sap wood aint the carcus of some sap tree hugger that was huggin a tree when it got cut down by someone trying to put food on his table

If Chic's correct, and it's cambium--

You can eat it.

Various North American tribes were known as "bark eaters."

I learned this on an almost forgotten lake in the Adirondacks last summer.

Turns out that in the winter, there wasn't much to eat up there, so the local tribe--almost certainly part of the very warlike Iroquois Nation--would prepare the inner bark as food.

What's next?

flaco

From Websters

quote:

sapwood

: the younger softer living or physiologically active outer portion of wood that lies between the cambium and the heartwood and is more permeable, less durable, and usually lighter in color than the heartwood. It shrieks in pain when cut but settles down if the heartwood is quarter-sawn.

Tree's grow so us guys that appreciate
fine wood will have it to build guns and
furniture out of.

George

quote:

Various North American tribes were known as "bark eaters."

I learned this on an almost forgotten lake in the Adirondacks last summer.

The Iroquois gave this name to their enemies, the Algonquin, that lived in the Adirondacks. It was a slur, to effect of, "You are such bad hunters, you have to eat bark."

From History in the Adirondacks
"The name "Adirondack" may have been derived from the Iroquois word "ha-de-ron- dah", which means "bark-eater," a derisive term they gave to the Algonquins.

quote:

Originally posted by TC1:
Just curious. While looking at the charity rifle thread, one of the blanks that I really like has a piece of sapwood on it. I assume it'll turn out, but what causes this to happen when the tree is growing? Anybody know?Thanks,
Terry

The tree's need to move water and nutrients from the soil up into the leaves and other living cells is what causes sapwood......

Coloration of sapwood is from the minerals in the earth where the particular tree grew.