<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2180" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: = Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=rol= e_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV> <DIV>      Hi Julia .</DIV> <DIV>     Did you see my post on this recently in this thread? Old wood is certainly harder to cut.</DIV> <DIV>     Dale Erwin</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><= FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size= =2><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face=Arial color=#000000 = size=3 BACK="#ffffff" PTSIZE="12" FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><BR></FONT><FONT lang= =0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 BACK="#ffffff" PTSIZE="10" FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><BR>Greeetings, <BR><BR>         Stiffer, does tha= t mean harder?  I was under the impression that as wood ages it gets mo= re (lets throwoah new word in here) ........brrittle. <BR><BR>       Brittle, to me, connotates a state of stiffness simultaneous with a vunerabilty to breakage.  When= I think of harder, I think of tougher, hardrer to break. Old wood is easier = to break, unless of course it's Oak. (Oak deserves a capital O because it is = so durable and seems to be the king of wood) <BR><BR>Julia,<BR>Reading, PA</F= ONT> </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>