Species guide

American yellow birch

Latin name

Betula alleghaniensis

Other Common names

Distribution

Eastern USA, principally Northern and Lake States.

General Description

Yellow birch has a white sapwood and light reddish brown heartwood. The wood is generally straight grained with a fine uniform texture.

Working Properties

The wood works fairly easily, glues well with care, takes stain and polish extremely well, and nails and screws satisfactorily where pre-boring is advised. It dries rather slowly with little degrade, but it has moderately high shrinkage, so is susceptible to movement in performance.

Physical Properties

The wood of yellow birch is heavy, hard and strong. It has very good wood bending properties, with good crushing strength and shock resistance.

Durability

Non-resistant to heartwood decay. Liable to attack by common furniture beetle. Moderately resistant to preservative treatment but sapwood is permeable.

Availability

USA:
Reasonable availability, but more limited if selected for colour, ie red birch (heartwood) or white birch (sapwood).

Export:
Limited due to low demand, but increasing.

Main Uses

Furniture, internal joinery and panelling, doors, flooring, kitchen cabinets, turning and toys.

Grading

Often sorted for sap (sapwood) or red (heartwood) clear cutting yield. When sorted for colour the FAS grade will allow a 5 inch minimum width. Refer to the grading guide for colour sorting specifications. Paper birch is a much softer textured birch species which is lighter in colour with scattered brown flecks and should not be mixed with yellow birch.

Technical statistics

Specific Gravity (12% M.C.):	0.62
Average Weight (12% M.C.):	689 kg/m3
Average Volume Shrinkage (Green to 6% M.C.):	13.40%
Modulus of Elasticity:	13,859 MPa
Hardness:	5604 N