Salvaged Firewood

[harry strasil]

Oak Pallets, most people just break them up and use them for firewood. But I am sort of a miser, I make a lot of things out of salvaged wood, packing crates, work benchs, tool chests, etc.
My whole workbench including all but one of the vises and vise screws are salvaged material, so a salvaged wood box to keep my wedges and bench dogs in seemed the thing to do. The box joints needed to be driven together so there is no glue, just a brad in each corner.

[John Keeton]

Jr., that is pretty neat! Do you have a pic of your boxjoint jig? Building one is on my short list.

[george wilson]

I found and salvaged a pallet made of very curly maple!

[harry strasil]

It's just made out of scraps mostly John, a scrap piece of 1/4 underlament for the new kitchen floor, some short scraps of 3/4 stuff and a piece of 1/4 keystock that can be found at most hdwe stores and 2 6/32 cover plate screws. I use the C clamp vise grips with the swivel feet to clamp it to the saw table.

[harry strasil]

George I have some short pieces of what my mentor told me were African Walnut, it greasy and heavy and a nice light brown color with dark streaks in it that hammer handles came in at the local hammer plant. The only thing I have made from it so far is my wing dividers.

[David Gendron]

These are nice divider, I never thought of wooden dividers!
Nice work!

[Richard Dooling]

I've been eyeing some oak pallets. Do you use a moisture meter or just store them till you figure the are dry?

[Don Rogers]

This plane was made from a piece of Oak firewood that I left dry in my shop for a few years. I did have to purchase a piece of 01 flat stock for the blade but made the chip breaker and blade screw from salvaged shop scrap.

No finish has been applied to this plane but I may use some shellac or BLO on it later.

The plane was made by following Davis Finck's book "Making and Mastering Wood Planes" and works very well. I hope to make more planes similar to this one using firewood from the same tree.

Don

[Mike Wilkins]

Join the crowd. Lots of us use salvaged lumber to make furniture or wood objects. I have been lucky enough to find figured lumber, quarter sawn oak, mahogany from pallets at Lowes, and some really nice reddish lumber from some machinery shipping crates from India. When I lived in south Georgia, there was a tale of one of the mechanics from the local Firestone tire plant that had one of the most expensive hog pens in the country: it was made of salvaged shipping crates-of Teak lumber!!!!! Talk about living high on the hog!

[Jim Koepke]

My hobby in wood working got started by making some adirondack chairs out of old pallets. Didn't have much money at the time. After making a few, the wife figured it would be OK to spend some money on some pine and some screws to make some nice ones.

jim

[george wilson]

I made a very fine flintlock pistol from a piece of walnut firewood an astute friend brought me. It had a curve in its grain that exactly matched the downward curve of the pistol grip. It also had some nice wrinkles in the grain for figure. Came from where the stump spread out,or where a branch met the tree.

I sold the pistol in the 80's to the last Dow running Dow Chemical. Offered me more money that I could refuse.

Unfortunately,My pictures of that pistol are slides,which I have very many,and need to get made into a disc before I can post images.

[Jeff Wittrock]

My brother used to work at a company that made horse trailers. Some of their steel came on large wooden pallets which he would always save for me.

Most of them were oak, but there was one made from a wood that I did not recognize. Kind of a light honey color. I remember getting some of the saw dust in my mouth and it tasted vary bitter. That evening my tongue swelled up and I felt sick as a dog. Still don't know what kind of wood it was.

[Harlan Barnhart]

I worked in the driving rain to rescue a large pallet from the mud. After some serious cleaning, nail pulling, ripping straight and a month or so of dry time it yielded enough 5/4 white oak to build a 1.75 x 24 x 66" quarter sawn, laminated bench top. A woodworker who saw the raw lumber called it "swamp oak". It was the nastiest grained oak I have ever seen but hard, stiff and heavy.

[Todd Ferrante]

The house I live in now came with a wood shed fully stocked with firewood cut from trees felled from hurricane Isabel. I have been burning the wood for three years now and there is still about a third of it left. Every so often I raid the pile and run some of the pieces through my bandsaw and see what emerges. It is funny that this thread popped up when it did. I saw it the day after I spent an evening slicing up firewood pieces.

The first project I made from the woodpile was in December '07. I often pick up old beat up chisels from flea markets and garage sales, just because I enjoy cleaning them up and sharpening them to become useful tools. I ended up with some matching chisels and decided to give them to my Dad for Christmas. To make a box for them I sliced up a piece of wormy spalted white oak. I used hand planes to plane the surfaces, and finished it by hand rubbing with multiple coats of paste wax. No sandpaper and no other finishing. Here are some pics of the result...
Todd F.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3660552083_ca520fb897.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3550/3660551729_e61601b5d5.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3650/3661351232_a9391bca07_b.jpg

[Andy Gilbert]

Todd, WOW, that's one beautiful case......and from the firewood pile!!!!! Well done.

[harry strasil]

Double Wow, I got plenty of firewood any time you want to visit Todd. LOL

[Todd Ferrante]

In '08 I made this pencil case for my nephew from wood from the same woodpile.
Todd F.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3661/3661516064_e801d2bd00_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2422/3660716785_ed328d315b_b.jpg

[Jim Rimmer]

Quote "The first project I made from the woodpile was in December '07. I often pick up old beat up chisels from flea markets and garage sales, just because I enjoy cleaning them up and sharpening them to become useful tools. I ended up with some matching chisels and decided to give them to my Dad for Christmas."

Is it OK if I send this to MY son. Wow, what a nice gift. ;)




[/QUOTE]

[harry strasil]

Here is some more pallet firewood.

[Nathan Talbert]

What size is best for drying firewood (or any felled lumber) if you want to keep as thick as possible? Could i cut it into 12/4 boards and let sit inside for a couple months? or a year? What percentage of moisture am I looking for to start making something out of it?

[Todd Ferrante]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

Here are some pics of the firewood pieces I sliced up the other evening. Now I need to decide what to do with them. The pieces aren't super large, so they will probably end up as small boxes or some such thing.

Here is another piece of spalted, wormy oak. These pieces are rough from the bandsaw and cut 7/8" thick so they can be planed to 3/4" boards.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/3661785373_42e9d4db67_o.jpg

Here is some cedar with some neat grain generated by the lump on the side of the firewood piece.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2426/3662585526_6c9a1f4b08_o.jpg

This is a piece of mystery wood. It is quite hard and very tight grained. I think it might be cherry, but I'm not sure. The insects had eaten the inner layer of bark completely away and turned it into grainy powder. The actual wood has just a few worm tunnels, but otherwise is untouched.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3644/3662585546_7fb5500c02_o.jpg

In terms of critter damage, the oak is the worst, then the mystery wood, then the cedar, which has just a single tunnel right near the surface.

What is the best way to be sure any insects/worms are dead in salvaged firewood? Nuke it in the microwave? Bake it in the oven?

Todd F.

[harry strasil]

Nathan, FWiW for green wood air drying, my rule of thumb for air drying is a year for every inch of thickness and seal the ends to prevent the ends splittiing, the now gone local guy whe used to have a band mill and saw up salvaged trees had an insulated smaller building with a large dehumidifier in it to dry his stuff. The pin oak for my bench was left in a friends metal shop building for 8 years.

[Bob Strawn]

In my area, they sell mesquite for firewood. Mostly for BBQ. A lot of it is punky and poor grade stuff, but on occasion I rescue some for woodwork.

http://battlering.com/woodworking/images/July%204%20tools.jpg

Nothing really big, but still nice enough to work with.

Bob

[Todd Ferrante]

Bob,
Nice tools. Do you have a closer picture of the square? What does the inside of the case look like?
Todd F.

[David Keller NC]

"What is the best way to be sure any insects/worms are dead in salvaged firewood? Nuke it in the microwave? Bake it in the oven?"

Todd - Given your location, your mystery wood really strongly looks like dogwood, or possibly redbud. If it's on the smaller side, it's probably dogwood. On the larger side, probably redbud. It makes excellent turning wood or just about anything that requires a hard, very fine-grained wood. I liken it to "American Boxwood" because of its density, fine grain and hardness.

Regarding killing the bugs that infest wood, I'd recommend ammonia fuming. While it will change the color of some woods (particularly oak - it darkens it), the cool thing about it is that it is 100% guaranteed to kill the heck out of any insect, insect egg, fungi, or bacteria, and it will deeply penetrate bore holes.

I've only used 30% Ammonium Hydroxide for the purpose, which can be quite nasty stuff, and will burn the heck out of your sinus, throat and lungs if you get a strong whiff of it, so a respirator is required. However, Bob Lang wrote a post about using 10% "Janitorial Strength" ammonia from a hardware store to darken oak in the Popular Woodworking blog. He brushed it on, but I'm betting it'd be plenty strong enough to work as a vapor if the wood's left in it for a day or so.

[Bob Strawn]

Bob,
Nice tools. Do you have a closer picture of the square? What does the inside of the case look like?
Todd F.

So glad you asked!

http://battlering.com/woodworking/images/Tool%20Box/Tool%20Box%20Open2.JPG

Most of the handles there are mesquite from firewood. The bigger mesquite tools are from fallen limbs or purchased wood.

http://battlering.com/woodworking/images/Tool%20Box/Mallet%202.JPG

http://battlering.com/woodworking/images/Square%20Happy%20with%20stick.jpg

The square is adjustable, for more details, here is an old entry in my blog.
(http://toolmakingart.com/2008/05/14/an-adjustable-square/)

Bob

[Bob Glenn]

I've been hoarding wood for years. If my garage ever catches on fire, they'll never get it put out. I told my wife, when I retired a year ago, my new goal was use up all the wood that I have stashed with projects. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to get that accomplished.

Thank god for trees and what they produce!

[harry strasil]

I just found a new source for SYP to salvage, the local Monument works. Staples, Staples, Staples, the guys who put the packing crates together must really like to pull the trigger on them staple guns.

[Jim Koepke]

This is my most recent salvaged wood project. Most of the wood came from the same pallet. The blocks at the bottom front were from a piece of scrap 2X4.
All the nails were also from the pallet, why buy new ones? The four screws used were recycled from a shed that fell down last winter.

The rails are made by sawing the rails from the pallet in half and then lap joining them. My grandkids enjoyed watching it being made.

121903

This is my grandson Jacob in the chair.

121904

This is the site for which the chair was built.

121905

This is a partial view from the chair. A bald eagle was observed earlier today from this location.



jim