here is a picture of my white oak "urban waste" tree i salvaged

[Kelvin]

 Howdy all,
Well i had posted that i would post a picture of my white oak find.  Local tree service was taking this down and called me to pick up the bole.  There is a little metal in the tree, though the left over pieces will be big enough to make it worthwhile.  Well hope that the market makes a turn for all of us out there to   Nice to be able to sell what we are working on!
KP

[Dave Shepard]

Looks like a beauty! Are you going to split it with the chainsaw and QS the lot? A buddy of mine got a nice whack of QS white oak last week. Lots of flecking. 8)


Dave

[low_48]

It's never good to see that purple on the end of the log. Have you run a metal detector over it? Good Luck!

[Kelvin]

Yeah, we will QS by splitting with the chainsaw.  Can't pick it up anyhow.  Should have done it before we loaded it as it took two cranes to set in there.
The purple stain is kind of a blessing, it helps pinpoint the metal before your blade does.  I simply keep it in one of my quarters and carefully saw and check w/ my whimpy detector until i come up with the problem.  The size of this stain makes me think someone parked their car next to the tree when it was young, and left it there!  I'm trying to find a market for all my stained qs oak.  I'm thinking of ebonizing the whole board and selling as something unique, though my whole operation is full of unique stuff than nobody cares too much about.  In fact i'm kinda unique!
Well, i'll post some pictures when we have time to bust it open and see what treasures we have.  maybe a civil war musket?
KP

[WDH]

The musket would be worth a lot more than the tree ;D.  Maybe you will be lucky!

[Stephen1]

Hi Kelvin, nice log, how did you make yourself a wimpy detector, because any detector would be better than the 1 I have, which is none  right now. I have just receive a yard full of logs and I see some purple in the end of one white oak log. All the wood has come out of homesteads. The developers have arrived and are cleaning out the trees before the tree huggers figure it out and try to stop them from cutting the trees, then in a couple years when they are ready for the subdivisions nobody is the wiser to the fact that there are no trees anywhere.

[Robert Long]

Hi Kevin

When you say you have a lot of unique stuff that nobody wants, can you be more explicit?

I too have a wack of different stuff that seems not to move too fast and so I sit on it.

Some examples are turning rounds, cookies, pen blanks, exotic woods, bass wood blocks for carvers and even bark and root for whatever the eye sees as a nice piece of wood.

It would be interesting to hear from others as to what they have in stock and what sells for them. :P

Oh yah.......nice white oak!

Robert

[woodmills1]

nice white oak.......hope you don't cut the musket in half while quartering with the chainsaw.

Robert..........I finally sold the last of my spalted maple that I cut around 11 years ago and moved many times.  I have a whole rack of turning blanks coated with anchor seal that are not flying out the door. and did I mention red oak shorts? ??? : :

[Robert Long]

woodmills1

I saved a big bunch of shorts of all kinds...maples,oaks,sassafras,sycamore,pine,walnut and much more.

I saved and I saved until along came a man who does intarsia and he was interested in the lot of shorts and we came to a very low price for most of it. He told me he would be back often for more so "save all you can, I can use it all" he assured me and I did......that was 3 years ago and I have not seen him since. >:(

Robert

[woodmills1]

figures  he wanted more too.

[Kelvin]

Yeah, those "shorts" guys.  I told 'em $1 a bd ft for my stuff that i normally hope to get $3-$4 a bd ft for, so after we load his whole pickup truck bed with qs oak, cherry and walnut i figured out about 100 bd ft, and he whines so i take $50.  It would be better burned in my woodstove at a certain point.  Don't know why i save all those shorts to sell for $.50 planed and kiln dried.  I guess they grow on trees.
My weird stuff is quarter sawn 8/4 for instrument makers (walnut cherry, sassafrass, though not much in the way of sales) walnut slabs (hard to kiln dry, and i may die before they dry otherwise) spalted stuff we are trying to make better with tarps and moist sawdust, all sorts of quarter sawn 4/4 sycamore, beech, cherry, maple, and of course the oaks.  All my sales are pretty kaput!  I'm downsizing and working handyman jobs to make payments for the next couple of years.  I guess the competition might all be out of business then and who ever is left will make a killing?  We'll see....
Kelvin

[Tom]

Hang in there Kelvin. 

I have a piece of 18" wide x 3.5" thick x 8' Red cedar in the barn that  has been sitting in the stack for at least 10 years.  Today a fellow called from Ga. looking for an 18" piece of wood 10' long to use for a mantel.  It's just what I cut this piece for.  I didn't know I still had it.   Went to the barn and there it was.  Didn't care if I sold it or not, the wife wants it.  $5 a board foot comes to $210.   They are going to talk it over with their customer and might come here to pick it up.

So, you never know.  If you can hang onto it long enough someone will come find you.  You don't even have to go look.  :D

[WDH]

I have several thousand feet of walnut to sell.  I sorted some out into grades:  Select, #1 common, #2 common, and junk that I thought was mostly firewood.  A guy comes over today for me to saw two oak logs for him (that I sawed way too cheap on a LT 15 ).  After that was done, he was interested in some walnut.  I showed him the piles and gave him the prices.  I put a price of $1.75/foot on the junk (badly bowed mostly with some splits).  He immediately went to the junk pile and pulled out about 20 feet.  He left all the better stuff and bought some of the junk.  Go figure ???.

[Dave Shepard]

Even a twisted or bowed board has some nice shorts in it, especially if it thick enough to allow a little extra planing and jointing. Perhaps he saw as much usable lumber in the "junk" as the #3.

[WDH]

Yep, I am sure that you are right.  Generally, the high grade is easy to sell and the junk accumulates.  Unfortunately, many times, there is more junk than high grade.

Straight, clear, round logs are wonderful!!  I hope to get one one day :D.

[Dave Shepard]

I had a beaut this summer, but it was only white pine. Sure made some nice lumber. Sawed some black cherry in Jan '07. I think they were a lower grade of veneer. Really nice logs.

Hang in there Kelvin. A lot of people will be doing whatever it takes to survive. I think you have a variety of skills that will pull you through the tough times.

[Kelvin]

Thanks for the kind words guys.  It will be interesting.  Least my wife works for the govt.  They don't ever down size do they?  Or go out of business?
Cheers,
KP

[Dodgy Loner]

I work for the government too, so I think I'm safe as long as we keep paying taxes ;)  Hang in there!

Good to hear you're able to sell some of that lumber, WDH.  I would love to sell all of my junk for 1.75/foot.  I'll keep the good stuff for myself ;D

[LeeB]

If I sold all my treasure junk for a buck 75 I'd be able to take a vacation. I got about 10,000bf of it.  :D