At the landfill I work at I get several bundles a day of Alder wood strips fro mthe coach shop. i also get several tons of blacks from their cabinet door shop. They cut out the red colored and burled and quilted sections of the wood. I think that the prettiest part of it. Back this summer when Meadows Miller came by for a visit he gave me an idea I never thougt of for the strips. He said to glue them together on the common sides and then run them through a planer for bench tops. I bring home each fall a 40 yard load of wood blocks from the door shop that has all been planed and cut off. I noticed while loading the trip dumpster I use to take it from the pile to the porch that I had several hundred 3/4 by 2.5 inch boards 2 to 4 foot long with the majority being 3 footers. I thought about taking Chris's suggestion and gluing them together edgeways and running through a planer.
Id like to make a bench top like this.
Run them though a finger joint or a lock miter bit and glue them up. Then you will have lots of little boards to make stuff with.
Sorta like this?
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10125/P7210001.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10125/P7210042.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10125/P7210053.JPG)
Taylortractornut, Yeah it will work,sort of like butch block tables. let me ask you this! why is wood waste being dumped in a landfill? you can make money out of wood waste or why doesnt the landfill recycle it? Tim
Larry thats what Im thinking of doing. Alder is a pretty wood.
Tim some of the waste is mixed in with paper and other rubbish but a few reasons why its land filled other than its not seperated starts like this. DEQ wont let us seperate it from the the rubbish on the working face. It would have to be seperated at the plant but the last few attempts either cost too much production having the workers seperate, then the cost of hiring a seperation crew cost wise plus the other support equipment needed.
Also theres a lack of room at the plant
They had 2 seperate companies that were going to sort it but they ended up stealing more than they recycled. 2 other companies we looked at to grind wood waste including brush and stumps had euipment that wouldnt pass for being acceptable for our landfill. After they stopped by to make a temporary set up we had to send 50 yards of oil contaminated soil to a hazmat.
Another reason is we also have to have a little wood as a binder in the other waste for it compact.
The plant also writes what they landfill off in taxes to.
We are talking with the plant owners about doing a trial sorting effort, Let them lease a New tubgrinder and a loader or excavator. We would also have to repermit for a chip storage facility on site and new storm water permits.
We could then save a percentage for binder.
They are kinda funny about their recycling habits. But right now Im working for a use for the wood as a building material that I can get free. The 40 yard load I dumped here has about 1500 of the long 1 by 3s in it. I wished I had known more about wood working when they used to use walnut all the time.
Taylortractornut, Thanks for the explanation! It makes sense that anything the government gets there hands into turns sour! and yeah processing equipment costs a lot of money and if you do not have a lot of material to grind it not worth the effort. Tim
What Larry shows should work fine.
If they are only 2-3ft long it will still work, and there is no real need to finger joint them for a glue-up like that. Just make sure you stagger where the butt joints line up along the piece. Each joint will be supported by the solid section next to it, so there is no way anything is going to come apart.
I can see where you would have problems recovering this wood on a commercial basis, the cost of labour and machinery would be more than the wood is worth. But for a guy working at home in his "spare time", no reason why you can't laminate up some nice stuff out of that "waste".
Ian
A Grizzly Christmas sale catalog showed up the other day with there new oak workbench tops.
http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2011/Christmas/46
Priced cheaper than what I've sold em for in the past. Re-loaders really like a heavy top to mount there presses on. I'm glad Grizzly doesn't sell them in bigger sizes.
Larry, you just gave your secret away to the importers :D. they are going to copy it and undersell you by shipping maple cut off overseas and glueing them up and shipping them back across the ocean :D :D :D Tim
Looks good. I live in a small town and everything has to be seperated. Everything that goes in a rollway,to the landfill,costs the town money. The wood is burned right at the transfer station.
They own their own landfill, Its actually 3 times bigger than the county rubbish site. We tried to get a company that burns wood that has an in house grinder take the blocks but they wanted to charge a disposal fee greater than what the company wanted to pay. I bring a load home every fall for firewood. Alder is a hot wood lol. The stakes make great stickers to.
Ill try the butcher block idea with interlocked multicolored boards. Im looking at a 3 phase Tablesaw and planer this weekend.