Advice for planking some hornbeam?

[sploo]

A colleague of mine is thinking about having a hornbeam tree removed from his garden. The main trunk looks pretty straight and is about 2m tall and around 40cm in diameter (though it's "fluted" so the usable diameter will be less).

It also looks to have a few decent sized branches, of maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the main trunk diameter, and up to 1m long.

If it is taken it down, how should we prepare the timber? I've previously planked sweet chestnut and maple logs (though nothing that long). I've also started turning now, so there's also the possibility of bowl blanks and tool handles - but I don't have any particular projects in mind.

Any suggestions of sensible preparation for hornbeam? Would it be worth quarter sawing some planks, or flat/plain? Should I focus instead on bowl blanks and tool handles?

 

[ED65]

The flutes you could make use of if you had handles in mind, to maximise the usable wood from the trunk. Not sure about planking it and whether it would be useful if you did, that might have more to do with the specific tree than the species as a whole as is so often the case.

I actually just used some hornbeam I harvested from a standing-dead bole in 2014 I think it was, after a tipoff from a friend about its location. It wasn't the bear to work I was expecting it to be but very nice tight grain. The colouring though, not much to write home about.

 

[dickm]

Very good for making formers for metalworking with softer metals, as it's blooming hard. Not sure about its tensile properties.