Ringbarking & Blæking

In today’s logging and lumber industry, it is the new normal to treat nearly every piece of lumber used with various chemicals in an attempt to preserve the wood. However, this is often a temporary “fix” and these shortcuts have proven to be ineffective over time. But there are tried and true methods of harvesting and preserving logs and lumber the natural way. These techniques have been used throughout Scandinavia for centuries and have been proven to preserve logs for as many as 1000 years without the slightest signs of rot or decay.

The magnitude of this sustainability is unparalleled by any other industry. If we simply take a moment to look back and apply the knowledge our forefathers knew (before it’s too late), we can turn around today’s modern consumer based home building industry and greatly affect the environment, our planet, and even our personal health, for the better.

There are two known techniques of preserving the wood with resin and taking all the sugars out of it a year before felling it. They can be applied both on the growing coniferous trees or just one of these.

First is the “Ringbarking in Norwegian” technique. Removing the bark on the lower part around the tree 10” wide about 15-20” from the ground. Like all vascular plants, trees use two vascular tissues for transportation of water and nutrients: the Xylem (also known as the wood) and the Phloem (the innermost layer of the bark). Ringbarking results in the removal of these two vascular tissues and can permanently stop further transportation of sugars and water. This knowledge executed correctly will cause the tree to go through a slow death process, removing all sugars and drying the tree at the same time before it is even felled. The result is a material/log that is ready to use, more stable, experiences less cracking, shrinking and will last for many centuries.

The other one is the “Blæking in Norwegian” (Injuring/Scaring) technique. “Injured” meaning – the bark is chopped off randomly with an axe so that the tree can start to heal itself and push all the sugars out of the sapwood and fill/replace it with resin and antiseptics. It is an almost forgotten technique in modern forestry. This is one of the ways logs, in which log-buildings have been prepared throughout Northern Europe for thousands of years, make them stronger and resilient to rot as the sugars and water in the sapwood are in turn replaced with resin and various antiseptics. There is common to call such prepared pines an “Amberwood”. It takes a whole cycle of 4 seasons until the tree is ready to be felled after injuring/scaring or ringbarking.

It will start to die by the end of next summer (if you injure it in the winter before) and then by the next winter it is ready for felling.  It should be felled when the roots are frozen and when the new moon is approaching based on the old carpenters calendar when is the best time to fell the trees for log buildings and timber frames.

I love this concept!  Do you have any personal experience with it?  Finding information on the technique has been hard for me.  You mention the ringbarking needs to be "executed correctly" and I assume the Blaeking also has particular details that really matter to having it work (width of strips, spacing of strips vertically and horizontally, etc).

This is exciting. Is there any recommendation as to when this should be done? We’ve been using our locust for fencing and other exterior crafts here in sw Wisconsin for the last 10 years, sometimes girdling them in mid summer to try and keep them from suckering. The only definite difference in longevity we’ve noticed is that denser, slower growing posts last longer than similar sized posts with large growth rings

Update from Orginal Author : Jacob Northman Guild

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio commonly known as Vitruvius, was a Roman author, architect, civil engineer, and military engineer during the 1st century BC. In one of his books about Roman Architecture he wrote following about the lost technique of forgotten forestry injuring growing trees on purpose: "In felling a tree we should cut into the trunk of it to the very heart, and then leave it standing so that the sap may drain out drop by drop throughout the whole of it. In this way the useless liquid which is within will run out through the sapwood instead of having to die in a mass of decay, thus spoiling the quality of the timber. Then and not till then, the tree being drained dry and the sap no longer dripping, let it be felled and it will be in the highest state of usefulness.

That this is so may be seen in the case of fruit trees. When these are tapped at the base and pruned, each at the proper time, they pour out from the heart through the tapholes all the superfluous and corrupting fluid which they contain, and thus the draining process makes them durable. But when the juices of trees have no means of escape, they clot and rot in them, making the trees hollow and good for nothing. Therefore, if the draining process does not exhaust them while they are still alive, there is no doubt that, if the same principle is followed in felling them for timber, they will last a long time and be very useful in buildings."" Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, 20 AD, Rome

Those experimental trees injured in those pics are going to be taken down this month after 2 years of waiting. There are two common wood injuring on purpose techniques known in Scandinavia and Baltics. 1. Ring cutting, barking. You measeure the depth of sapwood of the pine tree and axe a groove around the tree untill the heartwood. Make several spot injuries with an axe as high as you can get. Wait 1-2 years and cut down the tree during winter and empty moon. You will get a tree that has less sugars, water and nutrients in it what attracts fungi and blue stain. Pine after 2 years will still have needles in the branches but it is slowly dying as cutting the ring stops the nutrient transportation up the tree. All the suggars will filter out that ring. This way in Norway was prepared wood for stave churches. 2. Strip barking. You make lognitudal stripes on 4 sides of the pine at about 9 meters height. You do it in spring before juices start to flow. Next spring you remove 3 more stripes of bark/cambium - leaving it only on one thin stripe. After another year in spring you remove the last stripe and skin the tree completelty. All the rest of the injured places are infilled with pine resin and has closed pore structure. In the 3rd years winter by thr empty moon you fell the tree. You get 9 meters of round log that does not attract water and is copletely preserved by the pine resin. Such logs were used for round log structures - log cabins and round timber frame. I will fell the trees and post my experiment results in Northmen facebook and IG pages.

https://www.jottacloud.com/p/tnuis/_d93a22f8386a492b99ecd5b2204273f9_0547d99a2b157d5ef09a08cf31d00099265/thumbs

You can download presentations here about these techniques.

Does anyone have a picture of the cross section of a tree that had this done and has been felled?  Does all the tree's vascular structure get completely filled with resin?  That should be clear in a picture if that's the case.  

Greg Martin wrote:Does anyone have a picture of the cross section of a tree that had this done and has been felled?  Does all the tree's vascular structure get completely filled with resin?  That should be clear in a picture if that's the case.  

Check out the "Fatwood Friends" documents in the "Michael" folder from this link:

https://www.jottacloud.com/p/tnuis/_d93a22f8386a492b99ecd5b2204273f9_054585cff6a58b01471a53fd86e12d7d4c0/thumbs

Here is slide 13 from the presentation, which shows the effect of the procedure. It's evident that the zones adjacent to the bark stripping have resisted decay:

I am very interested in these techniques. I have plans to use at least the girdling technique for the posts on future cabin.

My only real question is if this would be as good on deciduous species. I have only seen mention of coniferous species being used. Can I use it with poplar, elm,  oak, etc?

Russell Goat Bailey wrote:

In today’s logging and lumber industry, it is the new normal to treat nearly every piece of lumber used with various chemicals in an attempt to preserve the wood. However, this is often a temporary “fix” and these shortcuts have proven to be ineffective over time. But there are tried and true methods of harvesting and preserving logs and lumber the natural way. These techniques have been used throughout Scandinavia for centuries and have been proven to preserve logs for as many as 1000 years without the slightest signs of rot or decay.

The magnitude of this sustainability is unparalleled by any other industry. If we simply take a moment to look back and apply the knowledge our forefathers knew (before it’s too late), we can turn around today’s modern consumer based home building industry and greatly affect the environment, our planet, and even our personal health, for the better.

There are two known techniques of preserving the wood with resin and taking all the sugars out of it a year before felling it. They can be applied both on the growing coniferous trees or just one of these.

First is the “Ringbarking in Norwegian” technique. Removing the bark on the lower part around the tree 10” wide about 15-20” from the ground. Like all vascular plants, trees use two vascular tissues for transportation of water and nutrients: the Xylem (also known as the wood) and the Phloem (the innermost layer of the bark). Ringbarking results in the removal of these two vascular tissues and can permanently stop further transportation of sugars and water. This knowledge executed correctly will cause the tree to go through a slow death process, removing all sugars and drying the tree at the same time before it is even felled. The result is a material/log that is ready to use, more stable, experiences less cracking, shrinking and will last for many centuries.

The other one is the “Blæking in Norwegian” (Injuring/Scaring) technique. “Injured” meaning – the bark is chopped off randomly with an axe so that the tree can start to heal itself and push all the sugars out of the sapwood and fill/replace it with resin and antiseptics. It is an almost forgotten technique in modern forestry. This is one of the ways logs, in which log-buildings have been prepared throughout Northern Europe for thousands of years, make them stronger and resilient to rot as the sugars and water in the sapwood are in turn replaced with resin and various antiseptics. There is common to call such prepared pines an “Amberwood”. It takes a whole cycle of 4 seasons until the tree is ready to be felled after injuring/scaring or ringbarking.

It will start to die by the end of next summer (if you injure it in the winter before) and then by the next winter it is ready for felling.  It should be felled when the roots are frozen and when the new moon is approaching based on the old carpenters calendar when is the best time to fell the trees for log buildings and timber frames.

How do I give this a bump toward the dailyish?

I would love if someone with a dendrology education could comment on this. Correlation is not always causation, so it would be interesting to know a scientific basis for the preservation aspect. I learned when I was young to girdle (what he calls ring barking) trees to kill them, but we did it to pre-dry firewood trees. If you are unable to cut firewood a year ahead, girdling trees in the spring allows you to cut them in August and have dry firewood by October.
The information presented is limited to conifers in Scandinavia so I’m wondering if there are other factors that slow decay. Or, if drying the sapwood this way has a similar effect to kiln drying lumber, (except that doesn’t prevent decay long term). If these methods truly can preserve logs for even a hundred years in any location it’s worth exploring.

I am wondering about fire hazard.  With the wood filled with resin, won’t your building go up like a torch?

I think, if ignited, conifer wood burns pretty fast on its own.  The pitch may speed it up a bit but I think you're already in trouble.

I think the intent would be to use it for select areas that need to resist rot.  Close to the ground or on the exterior.

Knowing what we now know about the communication in the forest community, do these methods cause any effects on the neighboring trees?

9 meters?  Where does one get that tool?

Mary Haasch wrote:Knowing what we now know about the communication in the forest community, do these methods cause any effects on the neighboring trees?

This whole thread is intriguing but I read it all with the uncomfortable awareness of the trees' sentience.

Mike Haasl wrote:I think, if ignited, conifer wood burns pretty fast on its own.  The pitch may speed it up a bit but I think you're already in trouble.

I think the intent would be to use it for select areas that need to resist rot.  Close to the ground or on the exterior.

I’m not so sure Mike. People use fat wood to ignite split pine firewood because it does catch a lot faster, and makes a lot of stinky black smoke too.  

The rot resistance is probably wonderful and I can understand wanting that on the exterior. I just think it’s a good idea to acknowledge that the fire hazard is increased when you make the exterior of your house out of fat wood.  People living in forest fire country need to be aware so that they can take other mitigation actions.

I too would love more info on how this would work on deciduous trees. Oak in particular.

I have a number of red oaks that need to go, they're approaching terminal age or not in good shape.

The red oaks are no good for house, ship, or other building but see a lot of use as pallet wood, dragline mats to get the crane out onto soggy territiory or wood for blocking things up. I use a lot of blocks for rigging and other things and would find a longer life on the red oak ones would be great.
I had some big dragline mats I cut up into blocks but they rotted down sooner rather than later.

The reason the red oak aren't good for building or boats or anything needing long durability is because their cellular structure absorbs water and wicks it deep into the wood.  That was explained and shown to me by an old boat builder and I believe him. White oak doesn't do this.

I think I can confirm that it works to an extent on deciduous wood...maybe.
I have some 50 - 60 year old oak and cherry forest on my place with a high canopy.
The native cherry trees have tried to compete with the oaks but failed.
End result is 15 - 20 foot high, 4 - 5" in diameter trunks that dried out "on the stump." after they couldn't make it.
Years ago I leaned them all up against a low oak limb and forgot about them.
They would snap off easily where the wood went into the ground.
They're still there and a little rough on the exterior but seem solid.
Wood on the ground here won't last a year but something different is going on here.

I'll also second what everyone said about fat lighter houses being a huge fire hazard.

All the old houses around here were built with that wood and it burns like gasoline if ignited.

The only thing I've seen burn faster were those old mobile homes with the highly flammable glue used in the wood paneling.