: Sycamore makes fair beads, it doesn't seem to split with wet and dry. (the
: old common name for it was button wood)

That's not the same tree that the Americans call Sycamore. American
Sycamore is Platanus occidentalis, and is more closely related to the
London Plane tree. The tree Mike is referring to is Acer pseudoplatanus,
an invasive and scruffy introduced weed species in the UK, which Americans
call the Planetree Maple or Sycamore Maple. As you can tell from the latin
name it is one of the Maple genus. I used uncoated maple for the feet of
my roof rack, which was obviously exposed to a lot of wet and dry, frost,
and salt off the roads, and that certainly stood up well to the abuse.

I've used Sycamore (in the UK sense) for the recess for a skeg control,
and have found that the epoxy coating hasn't stayed put very well - its
a hardwood and the epoxy doesn't seem to be absorbed into the surface at
all. I've used an epoxy coating on maple on Canoe paddles, and the epoxy
seems to have stayed on that just fine. Of course, for wooden beads if
you are using an oiled finish rather than an epoxy coating, this won't
matter :-)

: Hornbeam is another I used, it's
: heavy and awkward to work with edged tools but sanding works fine.

I've got Hornbeams planted, but as yet they haven't grown big enough to
start building boats out of ...

Kurt says:

> turns out the Savage man of the Emerald Isle starts with *living trees*.

I go one better than that, Kurt - I start with tree SEEDS ! And people
wonder why strippers take so long to build ....

Andy