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Color/Appearance: Heartwood is a light brown, sometimes with a slightly reddish hue. Sapwood is a pale yellow to nearly white. Flatsawn surfaces frequently exhibit small brown streaks from the conspicuous resin canals present in the tree.
Grain/Texture: Grain is straight with an even, medium to coarse texture.
Endgrain: Very large resin canals, numerous and evenly distributed, mostly solitary; earlywood to latewood transition gradual, color contrast low; tracheid diameter medium-large to very large.
Rot Resistance: The heartwood is rated as moderate to low in decay resistance.
Workability: Sugar Pine is easy to work with both hand and machine tools. Glues and finishes well.
Odor: While not nearly as pronounced as many species of Southern Yellow Pine, Sugar Pine has a faint, sweet odor while being worked.
Allergies/Toxicity: Working with pine has been reported to cause allergic skin reactions and/or asthma-like symptoms in some people. See the articles Wood Allergies and Toxicityand Wood Dust Safetyfor more information.
Pricing/Availability: Sugar Pine is widely harvested for construction lumber (particularly in California). It’s a member of the White Pine group, and is sold with other species interchangeably. Prices should be moderate to high for a domestic softwood.
Sustainability: This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices, and is reported by the IUCN as being a species of least concern.
Common Uses: Crates, boxes, interior millwork, construction lumber, and musical instruments (piano keys).
Comments: Sugar Pine is the largest of all species of pine, attaining heights of over 200 feet; it’s sheer size, coupled with its thick and massive branches, have lead some botanists to also describe it as the most majestic species of pine as well.
The wood of Sugar Pine is classified as white pine: this group is sometimes called soft pine, in contrast to the harder yellow pines found in the eastern United States. (The other two primary soft pine species are Eastern White Pineand Western White Pine.) Sugar Pine is significantly lighter and weaker than the species of Southern Yellow Pine, though it has excellent dimensional stability, and is frequently used in the production of patterns/templates and applications where stability is important.
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