sources of wood

Sorry to post two in a row, but I am looking for suggestions for finding inexpensive wood to turn.

I have an uncle who lives in a rural area and would probably share fire wood with me. Would green, roughly chopped wood, work?

How about softwood throw aways from my local big box lumber store?

Any other ideas?

Joseph

Reply to
Joseph Handy
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It's your best wood to learn on.

I periodically post a message on my local newsgroups offering to take down small hardwood trees, which has netted me some nice fruitwood.

Walking the dog and bicycling with eyes open has got me some beautiful box elder burl and elm by just ringing a doorbell. Especially after a windstorm...

And noting the tree service trucks in the neighborhood and not being shy to ask has netted crabapple, willow, elm and ash.

Reply to
Dave Balderstone

Joseph Firewood is great stuff. Check out my website under roughing a bowl.

Reply to
Darrell Feltmate

Throwaway wood from lumber stores and furniture makers is how I started, a great resource for seasoned! wood to be used on small or even large (depending on your luck) turnings. Also everyone else above me is also correct... I now get a lot of my wood from neighbors cutting down or fallen trees.

Reply to
Moshe Eshel

Joseph, once you get the hang of looking for it, wood is everywhere. I have guys that work with me bring me stuff all the time. A piece of this, a piece of that, and pretty soon you have more than you can turn.

In addition to the sources mentioned above, I have also had great luck with the 4X4 skids that wind up under all sorts of heavy things that need to be moved with a forklift. I look it over carefully to make sure there are no fasteners or anything that has been ground into the wood, but have never had a big problem with anything I have picked up over the years. I have found maple, poplar, white oak, red oak, sycamore, and many kinds of wood I can't identify that make great tool handles, Christmas ornaments, small bowls and vases, etc. A local tool importer here in town regularly throws away pallets that have mahogany, and some other kinds of unknown exotic looking stuff used as skids.

Wood is wood. The source doesn't matter as long as you are careful when using it to make sure it is not one of those super allergen trees, or something that has been treated with rot or bug resistant materials.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Look at your firewood before burning. Sometimes you get lucky.

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Gratitude is important. As you gain a reputation for wanting oddball pieces of wood, you must remember to repay in the appropriate coin. Can be a piece of work from "their" wood, a six-pack of the favorite beverage, or taking the farmer who skids for me and his wife out to Red Lobster for dinner and not flinching when he ordered chicken.

Then you can come home as I did one snowy day, to discover a 16 inch 8 foot cherry log beside the drive. Remained a mystery for four months until I got a Short Of Breath - love the dispatcher shorthand "old, SOB" comes over the pager - call to an acquaintance's house. Between vitals, we chatted in the back of the rig. It was he who delivered the log.

Reply to
George

Great ideas. Thanks!

So green wood remains stable after turning? It won't shrink and crack?

One last question, what's a skid?

Joseph

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Reply to
Joseph Handy

If you cut it thin, it will distort, but it'll seldom crack, unless you're _really_ dry. Tent with some newsprint to bring it down slower. Keeps things damper underneath.

This piece, as you can see by the initial picture, was a chunk of firewood split a year ago, so it was pretty dry to begin with.

Skidding is the process of getting the cut logs out of the woods. Nowadays they no longer skid them along the ground, which I suppose was the origin of the term, rather lift them with beasts like this, or larger.

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Reply to
George

Sort of adding to Robert's comments... as people find out that you're a turner, wood opportunities appear magically... Other people's dead trees or fallen wood are our treasures.... *g*

Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

Joseph,

Learn to identify species as quickly as you can ... once you put the word out that you are looking for interesting wood to work with, it'll come to you faster than you can turn it.

At this moment I have a dozen (or more) pieces of tamarind heartwood 3" x

6" x 42" in my basement ... most of them as curly as it is possible to hope for. Those are actual measurements ... not so-called 'nominal' sizes.

A Brother in my congregation brought me a short sawed off hunk and asked me if it would be okay to burn in his fireplace. Before I even knew the species, I looked at the grain and felt the heft and told him "Sure, you can burn this in your fireplace. But if you do, I'll have to kill you. Don't worry ... you'll thank me later." (It helps if both persons are firm believers in resurrection.)

It seems they are used in crates shipped from Brazil by a large automotive company. He brings me the whole crate, I have to disassemble it. (and yeah ... tamarind can definitely hang on to a nail!)

At about the same time, MY company started getting 1 x 3"s of the same wood used as spacers between wheels.

Can you say "ultimate workbench"? I thought you could. Tamarind is LOTS stronger than oak.

A lady living nearby has offered me 4 black walnut trees, with the largest being about 30" diameter and the others in the 18" range.

In the year and a half that I have been turning, I have been 'gifted' cherry (huge stump), pearwood (whole tree), walnut (large chunk), ash (whole tree), maple (3' dia. limb from wind damage), apple (whole tree), box elder ((large sections), tamarind (slabs) and birch (whole tree) so far. I probably left a couple species off.

In fact, my storage space now requires that I be selective in what I accept!

If you're hungry for wood, let others know that you are looking ... and then get busy making room for it!

Bill

Reply to
W Canaday

Yes, I'm getting to the point where I have to turn down offerings from neighbors, friends, and family because I've got so much. This is the beauty of turning verses other types of woodworking - just about any part of the tree can be used.

One suggestion if you haven't already - buy a good chainsaw and proper horse ot hold logs while cutting. Borrowing a chainsaw got to be a bit tiresome, when I had so much wood to cut.

Also, your better half would appreciate if you kept logs in a somewhat systematic piling. Having wood just 'thrown' around in the backyard has yielded several complaints.

Reply to
Brent

Hi Joseph, I'm known by this ng as a COC (crotchety ole coot) so I'll mention an occasional problem about 'gift wood': the super nice person who brings and keeps on bringing in ever increasing quantity, trash wood.

You accept the well meant gift graciously, although later you are forced to think up excuses why you haven't turned any of it yet.This results in even more 'gifts' while the donor basks in the pleasures of giving. What to do? The growing stack requires guilty stealth trips to the bonfire, but eventually, you'll get caught and your friend's feelings are hurt.

Some turners will argue that no tree grows that is useless for woodturning and with enough time spent and talent used up that is probably true. I know that "only God can make a tree", but some "fools like me" have come to believe that there _are some timbers that just aren't worth the effort of preparing and turning.

For those who have come to agree, I suggest that it's best to explain this to your kind and generous friends up front. Of course, we thank them profusely for their kind and generous gifts of firewood. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

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Reply to
Arch

A neighbor rebuilding a house cut two large maples last week, one 2 1/2 ft. diameter, one 4' diameter, partly hollow. I dulled two chainsaw blades cutting what I could and had to leave the rest for them to haul off.

Reply to
Gerald Ross

The first green wood I turned, I got from walking in the county forest and cutting up trees that had fallen over trails with a bow saw and an axe. Not all of it was good to turn, but a lot of it was- and it helped clean up the roadway for others. I'm sure any local parks or other similar things in your area would be more than happy to have you help them clean off the paths if you talk to the right people about it.

Sure it will, I've turned a bunch of that too- though I still have a hard time turning oak. That stuff cracks like crazy and likes to throw splinters at me when I use it. I only mention it because it's such a common firewood where I live.

That'd work fine too- there's no rule against gluing scraps together to make a blank. You can even use plywood, and it gives you an interesting striped effect. Do a search for segemented turning, and you'll see that there is a lot of really nice stuff made out of glued up odds and ends.

My best stuff has come from asking tree removal people if I can take a couple of chunks from trees they're cutting down. Half the time, they're hauling pieces out of a backyard with a wheelbarrow, and are only too happy to let you have some of it because it's that much less they have to cart over to the truck. If you ask nice, and have the equipment to take care of it, they'll even let you have the whole tree for nothing. A lot of that wood just goes in a chipper. The second best is going around the neighborhood and looking for downed trees after storms- the city will pick them up, but homeowners are usually perfectly happy to let you chop them up, take some of the wood and move the rest onto the curb for them.

Reply to
Prometheus

They often put poles in/on the road to stabilize it as here:

And the current lifting equipment is called a Log Skidder.

Skidding was done when they couldn't get the rails close enough for highline loading, or pre-railroads.

Reply to
Lobby Dosser

Hi Joe,

I turned a piece for a friend at work and others loved the piece. I put the word out that if I get logs of good wood, I will turn a bowl, box pens, etc. for them for the effort. I have netted ash, maple, walnut box elder, cedar, and some cherry so far. Not bad for free! I had enough last year to turn bowls for my entire Christmas list and still have left overs. :-) Gotta luv good freinds and fallen trees!

Dan

Reply to
dan cordes

There are still more than a few "roads" around here that show their corduroy origin during spring breakup.

Classic method here was wheels in the summer, sledge in winter.

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Now it's single machines that grip, cut, limb, cut to stick lengths and deck. Think Earl gave half a million for his last one.

Reply to
George

Arch.. having had this problem a few times, I've found that honesty is the best solution... and if I'm in a good mood, maybe a little tact... (you don't KNOW crotchety until you've been to my neighborhood)

They usually ask something like "can you use this?"

My usual reply is that I can always use wood either for turning or burning... and since most of the folks that I know enjoy stopping by the shop and enjoying the fire, it works well..

A lot of them SAY they have wood and then flake out... one guy is supposed to take out an olive tree for a friend next month and I really, really hope that he's serious.. Mac

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Reply to
mac davis

skids, like was mentioned before, if people move large objects with a fork lift they put wood under it so they can back out the forklift. Next time they need to move it they slide the forks under the load as it is prop ed up by the wood. some truckers use it for the same thing. Some cheap pallets are the same, two timbers with boards nailed across the top, your material can be stacked on top and moved around with a forklift. you just need to watch for hidden metal or rocks.

Bruce

Joseph Handy wrote:

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Reply to
Bruce Ferguson

Yeah, I agree. It's like Lane Philips said at the '97 Utah Woodturners Symposium, 'Life's too short to turn ugly wood'.

...Kevin

Reply to
Kevin Miller

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