Reclaimed Greenheart

On Saturday, August 8, 1914, Ernest Shackleton departed in his Greenheart wood sheathed ship, the ENDURANCE, intent on sailing to Antarctica and planting the British flag on the South Pole. This ill-fated voyage did not achieve its original aim, as even the tough Greenheart construction could not prevent the ENDURANCE from sinking in the heavy ice floes. The resulting dramatic events, however, are a testament to the even greater strength of the human spirit.

Used in other maritime applications such as the Panama Canal and the Liverpool Docks, Greenheart is one of the strongest and highest density hardwoods available. Its use in marine works and shipbuilding was enhanced by its great resistance to fungi and wood borers. The English novelist and journalist George Orwell was impressed enough with Greenheart wood that he devoted a significant portion of a personal diary entry to its properties and characteristics.

Docks and shipbuilding, however, were only one of the many uses for this incredibly dense and durable wood (Greenheart is rated as roughly twice as hard as oak using the Janka Hardness Scale). Trestlewood's reclaimed Greenheart is salvaged from the floors of decommissioned railroad boxcars.

Trestlewood painstakingly removes the Greenheart lumber from the metal structure of the boxcars and then further removes any other metal from the material. We've documented this important (and tedious!) process in a video on our YouTube page.

The wood may be purchased in its raw lumber form, but we most commonly plane and mill it into tongue-and-groove flooring. The milled product also makes a beautiful wainscot application. Its prior boxcar use provides flooring boards that are a consistent, finished 3" width and 3' length (see complete flooring Specification Sheet).

Trestlewood sorts the milled Greenheart into two general color categories -- reds and tans -- although many customers like to mix the two. Every piece comes complete with several screw holes and associated staining at no additional charge! The holes may either be filled (generally with a black tinted Bondo) or left unfilled as in the photos linked to the left.

Please email or otherwise contact us if you are interest in more information about this truly unique product line.

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