The locusts are coming!

f HROUGHOUT the South and I the East, they are everywhere. Extensive planting has filled regions with this pair of attractive, resilient woods. Still, they are rarely found in stock at the local lumberyard. Labeled problem woods, honey locust and black locust traditionally have generated low demand. As a result, the hardwoods have been too long overlooked as viable commercial products, being most often reserved for use as fence posts.

Although the two hardwoods havemany similar properties and are both under utilized, they are unrelated.

Story at a Glance

Honey locust and black locust are always found in the woods but not often in the lumber yards these locusts are unrelated but both are under utilized due to physical shortcomings... commonly used for fencing.

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Honey locust (G/edrtsis triacanthos), generally marketed in the South simply as locust, features a heavy, coarse-grained heartwood, light orange-red in color. The narrow sapwood is a creamy white, presenting a nice contrast to the heartwood. But unlike the heartwood, the sapwood is not durable.

Although the hardwood is very hard, heavy, strong and stiff, with exceptional nail-holding ability, it has a tendency to split. Its most obvious problem, though, is immediately detectable - its thorns. Long, stiff, needle sharp thorns cover the trees from the bottom of their trunks along the length of their branches. Some locusts have more thorns than others, but all will deliver their share of pain to would-be loggers.

Yet honey locust is fairly inexpensive, resulting in its use in joinery, general construction, wall paneling, interior trim, upholstered furniture frames and other structural parts. It is also commonly used for pallets, skids and containers.

Honey locust isnot related to, but is often confused with mesquite or ironwood.

Courbaril (Hymenoeo courbariD, also known as West Indian locust or simply as locust in the West Indies, is a darker, distant cousin, coming from the same Leguminosae family.

Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) will usually be found farther north in the United States than honey locust. It has also been planted in Europe, Asia, North Africa and New Zealand. Straight grained and coarse, the wood looks green when freshly cut but soontans to a golden brown.

Its best qualities are extreme durability, easy gluing, medium strength in bending and crushing, and excellent steam bending properties.

Its flaws are more numerous: low resistance to shock loads and stiffness, difficulty in machining and nailing, some blunting of tools, slow drying often leading to distortion or bad warping, andoccasional staining if it comes in contact with iron or steel following steaming. Although known for a durable heart, older trees may have rotten heartsand the sapwood is liableto attack by powder post beetles and common furniture beetles.

Since it is so often defective, black locust is often as hard to locate on the market as honey locust. But black locust is a tough, durable wood, especially when placed in the ground, and has been devoted to rougher, external uses, such as for wheels, barrows, wagon bottoms, stakes, gates, boat planking, and vehicle bodies. Selected material may be saved for joinery, cabinetry and sliced veneer.

Given their reputations as trouble makers, honey locust and black locust could prove an unexpected, inexpensive source of hardwood if granted a second chance.