The first year of growth is hollow in the middle. It retaines that hole for the rest of the trees life. I have a large one in my yard that is 20 years old. It broke in half in an ice storm and the hole was still present. I chopped the top of the tree off at 8’ high, and 2 years later it is 70’ tall and as full as it was before it broke in half.
Beginner woodworker here, I've used this stuff. My pieces have never had holes in them but I never got it from a lumber yard. As it ages it darkens with a slight greyish tint.
Hi. These came from Spain and I'm guessing either that it's a slightly different variety or mine is younger than what you got. Either way it's interesting. I bought these to make Japanese okobo shoe bases from.
Look it up on RU-vid how this tree grows There are lots of videos Essentially this tree is a plant and it resembles and grows like the giant sunflower does and has leaves with similar shape and size So, it grows vertically very fast with a hollow stem But with this difference, the plant like tissue solidifies into solid wood within a few months and the center remains hollow The tree keeps growing like a giant plant very fast wich tissue keeps turning into wood Within 4 years you have very tall trees with a diameter of 12 to 14 inches (30 to 35 cm) And the ready is ready to be cut down for harvest If you leave the remaining trunk and roots in the ground, the year after a new sapling will grow out of the trunk This tree is really amazing
@@andrewclarkehomeimprovement I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't actually Paulownia. However, it is from the center of the tree, which should be treated as waste.
@@visualpossibilities that's OK. As it turns out, that doesn't matter as they are destined to be made into Japanese okobo geisha shoes. If I remember, I got them at a discount rate. Visually interesting though.
...I looked up the hardness of Pawlonia and various maples and, no, it's nowhere near as hard. On one scale, Pawlonia is 300lbf and for example Birdseye maple is 1450lbf. My particular subspecies of Pawlonia may be slightly different to that but I'd guess not by much. Balsa by comparison was 90lbf!! So as soft as a sponge cake! I found that info here:- www.precisebits.com/reference/relative_hardness_table.htm Hope that helps.
