Although pine trees are not the most common type of tree in Australia, you can find find them. If you want to work with this soft wood rather than any of the country's hardwoods, you should work with treated pine rather than fresh new pine. Here are the top reasons why.

1. Fresh New Pine Is Too Wet to Use

If you've recently cut down a pine tree, you cannot use that wood right away. Like all plants that have been newly harvested, it has a lot of moisture in it, and the wood needs to dry out before you use it. Depending on the thickness of the pine, that can take years. If you start a project with wet wood, the wood will shrink as it dries, and your project will change shape.

2. Resin Will Build Up on Your Saw Blade

Even just cutting your pine tree into planks so you can build something, can be difficult. A lot of the moisture in a freshly cut pine tree is from the resin in the tree. That tends to build up on your saw blade as you cut.

The resin eventually makes it hard for the saw blade to move through the rest of the wood. Additionally, cleaning your saw blades isn't always easy. You have to use a special resin remover and carefully scrape the resin off the blades.

3. Unfinished Wood Can Lead to Splinters

Additionally, fresh pine tends to have a lot of slivers of wood, and that can lead to splinters both whilst you are dealing with the wood and after you have finished building with it. To avoid that risk, you should use treated pine. Alternatively, you can also invest a lot of time sanding your wood so that it is finished.

However, if you are building a wall clock or a similar type of decorative item, you may want to use rough unfinished wood. In those rare cases, you don't necessarily need to use treated pine. Instead, you can embrace the rustic look of new pine, but you should still let it dry out first.

4. Untreated Pine Won't Last as Long

If you are building a deck, a fence, a picnic table or anything else to display outside, you need to use treated wood if longevity is important to you. Untreated wood may get affected by bugs, mold or plants. To avoid that, you need pine that has been treated with insecticides, mildewcides and herbicides.