Wood gloat

[Todd Burch]

A church down south of me in Lake Jackson, Texas is remodeling their worship center. They dismantled 52 pews, removed all the screws and hardware, and stacked all the bench boards and back boards neatly into a storage unit.

The bench boards were all 15" wide (edge glued), a full 1" thick, and 174" and 106" long.

The back boards were all ~20" wide (edge glued), 3/4" thick, similar lengths, no hardware to speak of, and all had what equates to a hand rail on one edge (that part you hold on to when standing).

I opted for all the 1" material they had. Ended up with ~824 bf @ $1/bf. I thought it was a pretty good deal, seeing as they did all the hard work and helped me load it. :D

I didn't get any 3/4 material. Another guy was there and he got a few hundred board feet. I figured there is probably about 400/bf left in a few wide laminations and lots of strips that came unglued from the wider pieces due to age and handling. The pews were ~55 years old. Blond white oak. All flat - nothing curved. All flat sawn. A lot of the glued edges of the back board sections were coming apart, but all but 3 or 4 of the bench seats were holding nice and tight.

Not sure what I'll do with it yet. Might be shop counter tops, might be face frame/door/drawer front material for the house. Heck, might be attic boards in the garage for $1/bf.

No pics. Had to drive 250 miles round trip to get it.

I figure I also got, for free, about 3 packs worth of gum - stuck to the undersides of the seat boards, and a couple of vintage VISITOR tags. :rolleyes:

Todd

[Mike Olson]

Those must not have been very comfortable Pews if the backs and seats were flat.

That is quite the wood haul and CHEAP especially for 5/4

[Troy Turner]

Sounds like you done good, gum and all...LOL

[Jamie Buxton]

My woodworking club found a project like that. We could have the pews for free if we removed them. We took them out, cut them up, and distributed the lumber to the club members. For years afterward, we'd see projects made with this new species of oak -- Holy Oak.

[Todd Burch]

Holy Oak - I love it!

I forgot. I do have a cell phone picture of the wood loaded up on the trailer.

The folks in the pic are the people from the church running the project. The front trailer is mine, and the rear trailer was the other guy who got the 3/4" stuff. There were at least 60 boards @ 106" long, and looks like about 8 @ 174", plus the others I mentioned.

I wasn't too sure about just having the 3 straps on this flatbed trailer to travel 125 miles, but it did fine.

[Don Jarvie]

If you have a planer and jointer you will have 3/4 in no time.

[Jim Matthews]

Used as it is, you only need to clear finish off the joints.

You'll have new cabinets or tables in no time.
Let me be the first to express my jealousy at your good fortune with the traditional congratulatory

You SUCK

Best I've done this year is well over $2.75/bf for narrow Cherry.

[Todd Burch]

Let me be the first to express my jealousy at your good fortune with the traditional congratulatory

You SUCK

THIS is what I was waiting for. ;)

[Jim Matthews]

$1 per board foot of chapel dried, Sunday best pants seat polished old growth oak?

I can't really give voice to the depths of my envy.
I've been to one too many sales with "lumber" only to find termite infested pine 2x4s with the nails still showing.

All I have to do is tear it out for the remodel, and it's mine for a few hundred dollars.
(You know the drill.)

This is the score of a lifetime - it will be near impossible to top.

[Sam Murdoch]

...and they were all dismantled for you :eek:. Yikes, what a deal - good for you.

[Mel Fulks]

I agree with Mike that they must have been pretty uncomfortable. There are companies that sell used pews,the ads show up in church news papers and such. Makes me wonder if everyone is going to "sleep number " pews. You got a good buy.

[Todd Burch]

I asked them why they didn't just sell the pews. A quick search in ebay before I went showed decent prices (decent = 6X+ what I was going to pay) for whole pews. They said they researched it, and based on the number they had, they felt there wasn't a market. There was another church in their area that remodeled some time ago, and tried to sell the pews. They could not, and eventually had to pay to take them to the landfill.

I've sat on many a flat bottomed, flat backed pew. I think they ordered them that way to keep you awake.

[Matt Day]

Those must not have been very comfortable Pews if the backs and seats were flat.

All the pews I can remember sitting in had flat backs. I remember being uncomfortable, but that might have been the boredom since I was a rambunctious kid :-)

[Bill Huber]

Well I know where to go to get some good Oak now...:D

And as they say.... YOU SUCK

[Rich Engelhardt]

Well - since it came from a church......

Thou sucketh..... ;)

Go forth and sucketh no more (@ least until the next time)