Have you ever harvested your own materials for parts of a project?

[peter halle]

I was looking around my yard yesterday, and it got me to wondering how many members may have harvested (not purchased) something for a project?  Now when I say harvesting I mean cut your own, reused wood from a pallet, made re-use of something that otherwise would have been thrown away, discarded, burned, left to rot, etc.  Could be a large quantity or even just a tiny part.

Anyone?

Peter

 

[Sparktrician]

I frequently make use of left-over scraps for various projects.  A printer stand made for a friend was entirely made from left-overs.  The base I use for my dovetail jig was a countertop scrap from my days in the closet industry.  The clamp drawer I use with my sysport is nothing but reclaimed material. 

 

[Tinker]

I am currently using up piles of scraps from previous jobs.  the most scraps accumulated when we did an alteration (complete rebuild) to our bathroom.  THE BOSS did not want me to do the job as she was afraid it would drag out too long since i was just getting started with my landscaping for the season.  I had to agree since it is the landscaping that pays the toll.

I did build a stairway down into the cellar, as the stairwell had to be rebuilt as part of the project.  When the builder saw that the stairs fit perfectly when they were installed, she decided to let me do milling of the rough lumber that i had for doing the panelling and trim work.  She had two carpenters and other trades men working and I had to go full speed and nites to keep ahead.  Any scraps/off cuts were just tossed to far end of shop.  that was two years ago.  Last winter i started piling the remains and salvaged some of it forprojects.  this winter i am still doing the same, but i can now move around the shop without banging my head on the ceiling joists  :

I also have several pieces of firewood that i have cut into blocks on the bandsaw.  Some short tree limbs cleaned up from customers yards have also been sawed into blocks.  The blocks of wood are anywhere from 12" to 24".  Thickness about 6"x 11-12" width (limited by thickness planer capacity)  

I tried milling several logs from trees i had removed from customer's properties.  i decided that was, for me, a waste of time and potential for extreme back problems. Too much time lost with stickering and not enough level area to do the stickering anyhow. I found it was much more fun to go to the mill and purchase rough cut lumber already air dried.  I only had to load and haul the material one way.  I still have a pile of red oak in the barn that is also part of the reason i no longer have my own logs milled.  They did such a terrible job that i think it costs me more to thickness plane the boards than i ever saved by doing it that way.  There are other mills around, but,as i said, it is much easier the just haul one way.

When I was in construction, i used to save pallets.  It was a real hastle to remove nails and there were always a few that broke off.  That turned out to be an expensive waste of valuable time.  I still watch for decent pallets and bring one or two home.  I try for a very short few minutes to get nails out.  They are too resistant to nail pulling tools, I just attack what i can with the chain saw and haul the rest to the dump.  I don't like to run the nail ridden pieces thru the woodstove as that presents other very unfavorable problems.

So, after all of that, the direct answer to the question is: Yes.  i am a scavenger when it seems to make sense to be one. Of course, my idea of what makes sense does not always meet with the approval of   [censored]  I am sure i need not explain where the dis approval originates.
Tinker

PS  I have managed to acquire several great pieces of spalted wood from various yard cleanups.  Those can be terrific surprises now and then.

 

[Bikeboy80]

I have some Black Walnut in my shed that I cut from a tree in a friends back yard. Had it cut into 6/4 and 4/4 planks, it has been drying for about three years now. One of these days I'll get around to building something with it. [tongue]

 

[festooltim]

I had to stop bringing scraps home, they just filled up my garage and I ran out of room. I have milled my own logs though. My father had built a portable Sawmill and I used to do custom log sawing for people on site. I have about a thousand board feet down at the family farm. Mostly Cherry wood, always intended to make my own cabinets with it but there is always something else that needs done. Wish I had a big enough garage I could leave the sawmill setup. Makes quick work of ripping boards or redrawing.

 

[Tinker]

I have several blocks of Black walnut that I have cut from a limb i "rescued from one of my daughter's trees in Arlington.  I had put the two small logs in my garage to dry ouut for two or three years.  I had placed them on a couple of boards to keep them off of the cocrete floor.  During the interim, my helper moved them and stuck them back in a corner out of sight with the end of each log resting on the concrete.  There is always just enough moisture in concrete to harden a bag of cement in a hurry.  I did not realize what he had done.

When i finally brought the logs in to my BS to saw into blocks, i discovered the most interestin "flame' pattern to the wood from where it had started to spalt.  I am going to make a jewlry box for my daughter out of the wood.
Tinker

 

[mastercabman]

I have been collecting a lot of cabinet parts like fillers.
I sometime build little sheves out of it,but i also use them a lot for doing repaires on jobs.(broke/crack stile or rail)
Sometime we come across a client that wants something made to match the cabinets that they about to get.And i usually end up using those spare parts.

 

[bruegf]

Last year I had a 42" diameter oak tree that fell in my yard milled into 4/4 lumber, waiting for it to dry.  Last I checked it was down to 10-12% moisture so should be good in another year or two.

Fred

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

Last year I had a 42" diameter oak tree that fell in my yard milled into 4/4 lumber, waiting for it to dry.   Last I checked it was down to 10-12% moisture so should be good in another year or two.

Fred

Kiln dried lumber is sold between 10 and 12%, anything lower and will have issues too.

It takes one year to air dry 4/4 stock.

Yes I have used reclaimed barn beams for interior mill work. Too hard on machines, even with a metal detector.

My grandmother had 700 trees cut in her woods.  I am in the process of going through the tops, so far there is quite a bit that are 12 to 14" diameter and at least 7' long. Hope to stash a few hundred bf of numerous species. There was a lot of ash, maple, walnut, hickory, red and white oak, plus some others.

 

[Tinker]

When I first started my masonry biz, way back in the mid 1950's, I did a job for a friend who did floor installations.  Along with the mason work, i was helping him with putting a couple of cabinets in his garage.  There was a pile of slabs back in the corner where we were going t put the cabs.  It turned out they were Walnut flitch cut to about 6ft long and about 2-1/2 ft wide by about 3" thick.  The man wanted them out of there and he told me to take them.  I didn't have room on my truck so he told me to come back next day.  He would leave them out where i could get them with no problems. 

The next afternoon, as my helper and I had just started loading the slabs, the wife drove in.  What an explosion erupted.  She told me those slabs were from her great grandfather and [censored] bla>bla> > >.  I don't know what my friend Charlie got that evening, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good.  I only saw him a couple of times after that.  I guess he had orders to stay away from that NG mason.  During the mowing season, i often drive past the house going to one of my lawns, but I see signs of a lot of children in the yard, so i am pretty sure Charlie and his wife don't live there any more.  And I can see those walnut slabs are no longer piled in his driveway. 

Do you suppose I should stop by and ask the owners about that walnut?  :
Tinker

 

[bruegf]

Last year I had a 42" diameter oak tree that fell in my yard milled into 4/4 lumber, waiting for it to dry.   Last I checked it was down to 10-12% moisture so should be good in another year or two.

Fred

Kiln dried lumber is sold between 10 and 12%, anything lower and will have issues too.

It takes one year to air dry 4/4 stock.

Yes I have used reclaimed barn beams for interior mill work. Too hard on machines, even with a metal detector.

My grandmother had 700 trees cut in her woods.  I am in the process of going through the tops, so far there is quite a bit that are 12 to 14" diameter and at least 7' long. Hope to stash a few hundred bf of numerous species. There was a lot of ash, maple, walnut, hickory, red and white oak, plus some others.

Good to know, I was thinking I'd need to get it down to 8-10%.  I guess now I need to start thinking about what I want to make from it.  Didn't have anything in mind when I had it milled, but thought it would be a shame to just burn it all in the fireplace.

Fred

 

[rdesigns]

Great topic--there's something very gratifying about doing this. I suppose part of it is getting something for nothing, and the other part is feeling that you've saved something from being wasted.

I harvested (read "scrounged") a pickup load of old-growth douglas fir 2 x 6's from a guy doing a remodel on his house. Many of them were quarter-sawn and almost defect-free. They were a full 1-3/4" thick. With them, I made 3 plank-and-ledge doors in our wine cellar, and the alternating-step stairs for it.

From another remodel job, I salvaged several 1 x 18 x 12-foot pine boards that were mostly clear of knots or defects. They had been used as shelves, so there were very few nail holes in them. I made a very nice fall-front desk from them.

I got some nice Eastern White Pine from the packing pallet of a Vermont Castings cast iron stove we bought, and made two end tables.

 

[waynelang2001]

Most of the segmented lamps that I make come from scrap I have lying around the shop that I used to throw away.

 

[jacko9]

Peter,

I have saved and reused material for the past 40 years including trees that I've cut and slabbed and pallets that came with machinery I purchased.  Lately as I try to work, I noticed that I spend as much time moving around my "treasures" than I do working so, starting two days ago I decided that the green waste recycling in my city will be getting a donation each week starting with the smallest until I can walk freely around my shop.  Last month I purchased an Oneida V- System and I'm in the process of running 6" overhead duct runs when I encountered long trim cuts from two flooring jobs I did years back, now they are being re-cycled.  My point is if you don't use something for over decades you probably won't ever get to it.

Jack

 

[greg mann]

I have a hard time throwing anything away. After awhile I realize I need to do some housecleaning and get rid of about half of what I should. I have a bunch of black locust trees to clear out and will have a friend saw them up for compost bin lumber. I also have a huge white oak that was killed by lightning. The first 10 feet was firewood grade but we are just getting into the crotch material now and it looks pretty sound. I need to start doing some homework on creative ways to use it. It was still over 4 feet in diameter @12 feet above the ground.

My kayak building mentor had a friend help him restore the exterior of his garage. The friend kept throwing scraps in the roll-off and the mentor kept digging them out, for which he was mercelessly kidded. Later on, he helped his friend build a skin-on-frame kayak as re-payment for the help and everything but the long gunwales were salvaged from the garage work. He didn't tell his friend until he was ready to start stitching the skin. The friend had no idea.

 

[Tinker]

If some future owner of our house should decide to either tear down or remodel, they will find a history of framing lumber.  The house was orginally framed with all 2x lumber.  The horizontals were D-fiir and 1-3/4x.  The verticals were all 1-3/4x3-3/4 Redwood.  I saved any redwood that I removed for any of my own alterations. some of those are still awaiting some future project.  I have used most of them anywhere the wood might be exposed to weather.  Thru my years of masonry contracting, i scrounged lumber from throw away piles on many jobs.  I accumulated 2x's that were a full 2"s down to 1-3/8" .  The front wall, back wall and one end of the house were eventually extended.  I used up many of those odd sizes with the remodel. There are atleast 4 different sizings of those old 2x's but no wall of any closet or room has such a mixture.  I would pile the lumber in separate piles and use only one size on any one wall.  That way, the dry wall would not have waves.  Had I plastered instead of drywalled (I learned how to plaster early in my apprenticeing years), I would probably not have been so careful.  Because i was careful in selection, the drywall went on straight, but anybody tearing into any of the walls in future might be in for some surprises on the the different sizings of the framing lumber.
Tinker

 

[Nigel]

Cutting firewood a few years back I decided to make a shaving/draw horse. Made from green without powertools.I used it last summer see pic.
[attachthumb=#]

 

[TurnagainD]

I built a mantle out of some Lutz spruce we dropped on a building lot last year.  The log sat for a year then I had it slabbed by a band saw mill and dried it on a radiant floor for a couple of more months.  This spruce moves quite a bit so I ripped and re-joined the pieces.  We kept the live edge look dark.  This fireplace had a piece of birch plywood for a mantle for the last 12 years, it was one of the first things I noticed when I started the remodel.  The homeowners are happy and that's what matters.

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[panelchat]

I've got 40 or so four foot maple boards in the garage at the house I grew up in. 12 years old now. Suburban street trees from the yard there with short trunk sections before the branches started. If you have the transportation and someone to saw it up into rough stock for drying, it can work out well. Since I don't live in the area, its been tricky to put them to use, but there are plans for coffee and dining table for the house... The trees were very poor looking for timber trees but worked out in the end, had some planed and they look great, only issue is they are all under 52"...