Beech wood is the fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk from fr om the deciduous trees known as beech. The wood is excellent firewood which is easily split. It I t can burn for several hours hours with bright but calm flames. Beech wood is used in the making of solid and laminated flooring, furniture, decorative veneers, musical instruments, cabinet, wooden spoons. It works best with hand and power tools and has good nailing and gluing properties. Commonly found in the wilderness of Maine and southern and eastern portions of the United States. With its smooth, grayish-blue bark and wide branches, the beech tree also serves as a decorative tree Copper Beech, known commonly as the “Beech”, makes up 14% of Germany’s 10.8 million hectares of forest area, making it the country’s most common deciduous tree. They prefer humid locations and lightly acidic to calcified ground with fertile sandy or clayey soil. They tend to avoid very dry ground or waterlogged, regularly flooded locations. In Europe they can be found up to 800 metres above sea level and even at altitudes of 1,000 in the southern Alps. The Copper beech is one of those tree species with (red heartwood), which can form when oxygen enters central parts of the tree, i.e. due to damage.The wood is greyish-white with a pale yellow to reddish reddish hue. Beech wood is hard, very tough with low elasticity and very strong in the load-bearing sense. Basic density is 0.66 g/cm³ g/cm³ with 15% wood moisture. Beech wood is easy and and clean to work with. Steaming reduces the Beech’s Beech’s tendency to warp and crack and enables enables the wood to be shaped easily.
Because of easily shaping of beech wood us a popular choice for fine woodworking projects that require detail and bending. Beech wood takes stains well and shouldn't need any type of finishing material which is commonly used in furniture making to change the look of a particular piece. Furniture made from beech wood is durable and strong. The most common furniture pieces made from beech trees include cabinets, benches, stools and tables. Because of its fine grain and silky, evenly textured wood, beech trees are commonly used to make paper. The paper making process requires beech tree wood to be refined into a pulp before becoming paper. The properties and qualities of this pulp determines what type and grade of paper will be made. Beech wood is easily refined and becomes a smooth, opaque paper. The pulp made from beech wood takes bleach well, which makes a very bright paper
Many animals, such as opossums, black bears, white-tailed deer, rabbits, geese, red and gray squirrels, flying foxes, and porcupines use the nuts that grow and fall from the beech tree as a food source. Historically, the nuts from the beech tree were used as a food source for poultry
and pheasants in France. The nuts grow in leathery shells that are very difficult to open. They have a rich, delicate flavor that makes up for their small size. Oil may also be extracted from these nuts for use in food. The triumph of the railways in Europe would have been unthinkable without impregnated beech wood sleepers, which were much cheaper than their oak counterparts. Beech chippings and wood flour are used for smoking and last, but not least, beech is a high-grade heating fuel with a high calorific value, because it burns long and slowly, forming good, low-burning embers. This, and attractive flame pattern, is why beech is one of the best wood types for open fireplaces.
Antonijo Ćosić
