Ash and durability

[Paddy Roxburgh]

The other day I was chatting to a traveller who was building a wagon (horse drawn). I was surprised that he was using ash as it is listed as non durable in all online sources I have seen. I asked him about this and he replied that he didn't really know about that but they were always built from ash and seemed to last ok. Now a quick search shows that many outdoor items that I would assume would need to be durable including wagons and old car chassis and external doors were often made from ash.
It seems that there is a disconnect between tradition and received wisdom about the durability of ash, I would be interested in your opinions.
Paddy

 

[Beau]

Most older members will have seen ash used on the coach work on Morris travellers. As an aside I sell a lot of firewood and ash is one of the few species that when left in the round outside shows little decay after a couple of years.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Look at any old Morris Traveller and the ash work is nearly always starting to decay, especially at the joints. And it was not only Morris Travellers. my ex-BIL had an Alvis. All the ashwork was rotten, so he threw it away. One day, he realised that those pieces would have made very good templates...

 

[NazNomad]

European Ash generally has a very straight grain, and it's tough and flexible. Ideal for bending if you have to (which you usually have to for a car body).

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Look at any old Traveller and the ash work is nearly always starting to decay,.

This confused me for a second as my OP started about a conversation with a traveller (as in Gypsy not the car).

Back on subject, if ash is not good for such applications why was it used? Surely the amount of hours in making a wagon make the difference in price between oak and ash negligible, especially with all the carving work on the frame he was doing. I was a bit disappointed that he was using a generator and an arbotech disc on a grinder rather than gouges, it didn't quite fit with the romantic look of the bow wagons and horses, I should probably check my stereotyping.
Paddy

 

[No skills]

I think Morgans have a laminated ash frame (?).
I've always read not to use ash for anything exposed to the weather. The traveler's caravans are usually very well painted (decoration wise) maybe the sheer amount of paint over the years keeps them from rot??

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Leave a tool with an ash handle outdoors for a few years and see how much of it is left.

 

[Beau]

Look at any old Traveller and the ash work is nearly always starting to decay, especially at the joints. And it was not only Travellers. my ex-BIL had an Alvis. All the ashwork was rotten, so he threw it away. One day, he realised that those pieces would have made very good templates...

Yes agreed it's not the best outside but not the worst either.

Oak is supposed to be great but just about to make an outside bench due to the previous oak one rotting away in around 10 years :?

 

[Steve Maskery]

This confused me for a second

Sorry, I didn't spot that! Fixed.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I suspect the ash is used for its mechanical properties, just as it is for tool handles. And it rots the metalwork less than oak !

Having said that, I split up an ash log that had been lying in the grass at my allotment for probably 5 years, and it was still pretty sound inside. Maybe it is not so bad.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Look at any old Traveller and the ash work is nearly always starting to decay, especially at the joints. And it was not only Travellers. my ex-BIL had an Alvis. All the ashwork was rotten, so he threw it away. One day, he realised that those pieces would have made very good templates...

Yes agreed it's not the best outside but not the worst either.

Oak is supposed to be great but just about to make an outside bench due to the previous oak one rotting away in around 10 years :?

I regularly pass a pair of oak gateposts I put in in 1975 and there is no sign of rot yet. Did your bench have any exposed horizontal end grain? That is the usual source of rot.

 

[Yojevol]

Ash was always used in wagons because it is tough and flexible and could be grown cheaply and nice and straight in ash groves.
They still build Morgan cars with ash frames which were all made from solid when I went round their factory a few years ago. It's a good visit if you're in the Malvern area.

 

[RobinBHM]

Ash is class 5 for durability according to this table, compared to oak -2 and teak -1

http://www.woodworkersuk.co.uk/timber-durability.htm

 

[wallace]

I thought it was used for wheels, axles because of its ability to resist shock forces really well. Its usually painted

 

[Bm101]

Interesting post Paddy. My guess is a bit of all of the above. I read a book about this fella who cut down a prime Ash and then paid people to make stuff from it. Everything from arrows to a toboggan. Pretty good book. One chapter he takes some to a wheel wright and the fella drops an ash wheel on the floor and it bounces a couple of foot in the air. That maybe and the fact the travellers were traditionally itinerant workers, tinkers etc, (bit like most of our relatives maybe without the travelling tbh.) Not so long ago most were living hand to mouth unless you happened to be born to the one or two families in the area that were well off.
So Ash was cheap, available and served purpose. Fallible but you weather proofed it. Maybe thats where the painting traditions of bowtops evolved. Brings us neatly back to narrowboats in a way Paddy.
Funny enough, I still have one of these in my shed from my youth. Known as a bow top stove. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-Victo ... Sw9GhYmzF1 Mine need some (easy derusting ) work and I had to get the top cast weld many years ago. Could clean the weld line up with a flapper disc. Still... £650! :shock:
I might owe you another bottle Paddy.
When I bring it round I'll tell you the story of how I came home one day to my little caravan in the mountains of North Wales to think I was being arrested but it turned out the two big fellas in leather coats were not police men, one was the Polish King of the Gypsies. True story. I sat and had a cuppa with 2 huge fellas who looked like they invented The Sweeney, didn't arrest me. Ended up drinking tea instead. Fantastic.

 

[Mike Jordan]

Contrary to what I see written about Ash and durability I have used European Ash for outside items and found it to be pretty good . A garden gate made from what was described as German Ash survived my neglect policy for nearly twenty years. On the other hand a piece of narrow boat external joinery made from American Ash failed very early. It seems that American Ash is like American oak which is very poor for outdoor use.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

The primary cause of confusion on this subject is probably people's misunderstanding of what timber technologists mean by "durable" when they discuss the subject. Durability in their field describes the natural ability of a timber species to resist fungal decay when in contact with the ground.

Thus European oak is classed as durable indicating an expected life expectancy of 15 - 25 years (in ground contact). American white oak falls into the same category, but most people reckon its life expectancy is usually towards the lower end of the classification, whereas European oak has a reputation of being towards the upper end of the scale.

Both European ash and American ash are classified as non-durable with a life expectancy of 5 -10 years (in ground contact).

Given the above information, it's probably not hard to realise that a wood species used externally, but not in ground contact, is frequently going to last longer than the time indicated in a "durability classification" reference chart, table, or other source.

As others have indicated, ash has a something of a history of use in vehicles of one sort or another primarily where the material's very good shock absorbency, flexibility and elastic characteristics are utilised to advantage, e.g., car chassis (Morgan cars) and car bodywork (Morris 1000 Woody), horse drawn carriage shafts, etc, similar in many ways to striking tool handles and sports equipment, such as hammer and mallet shafts, spade handles, snooker cues, hockey sticks, oars, baseball bats, and so on. Slainte.

 

[MarkDennehy]

Whatever about the wood's durability in terms of its resistance to rot, if it's for a wagon then you probably care more about its durability in terms of mechanical properties - especially vibration and sharp impulses from the road surface and potholes. And if there's one thing you can say about ash, it's that it'll flex a lot more than oak and so your wagon flexes and creaks when it hits a pothole, but it doesn't snap and break. It's why it famously gets used for other similar applications involving a lot of high-impact stresses

 

[Rhyolith]

I think ash was used in early airoplanes due to its high strength to weight ratio, its mechical strenght is excellent as woods go. Indeed I use it for tool handles, including large felling axes for the same reasons desribed above.

However I know my ash logs go off very quickly, succumbing to rot and decay, so it makes sense thats where the low durabltiy descriptions come from.

 

[JohnPW]

Re the definition of "durability", I think the timber has to be in contact in soil/earth, eg a wooden pole drive into the ground. And the wood has to be unfinished and not treated?