Wood Hoarding

[Tom Bender]

To get decent grain matching and to allow for mistakes and mid project improvements it helps to obtain a little extra wood for a project. There are offcuts and extra, and some wood just arrives unsought. I have some wood that has inhabited my shop for over 30 years, but there is one piece from my grandfather, a truly ugly and useless old piece of Hemlock that must be at least 80 years old. It's 9 ft long, 5 x 5 at one end tapering to 3 x 3 at the other. Knots make it structurally unsound and it's warped and very rough sawn. My brother found it in the barn a few years ago and it followed me home. It'll make a nice fire someday.

[David Buchhauser]

Hi Tom,
I do the same thing in my shop - but it is mostly metal and hardware. I do have some wood that I have saved from over 30 years ago - so maybe that is sort of the same thing.
David

[John K Jordan]

.....there is one piece from my grandfather, a truly ugly and useless old piece of Hemlock that must be at least 80 years old. It's 9 ft long, 5 x 5 at one end tapering to 3 x 3 at the other. Knots make it structurally unsound and it's warped and very rough sawn. My brother found it in the barn a few years ago and it followed me home. It'll make a nice fire someday.

One person's firewood can be another person's treasure. Woodturners can use all kinds of pieces, down to even 5/8"x5/8"x6". A 5x5" chunk like that would be a real find for the right person, complete with knots, warps and all.

What to do with excess wood is a problem for many, often resolved after they are gone. Much of it apparently does get burned or trashed by kids and grandkids when cleaning out shops.

Our woodturning club has had the good fortune of donations by widows of woodturners and woodworkers and many turners have benefited. As well as practice and useful turnings, some of the wood has gone to kid's classes at a local children's ranch, turned into Christmas ornaments for sale to benefit the local children's hospital, and made into Bead's of Courage boxes for seriously ill children, most with cancer.

I save strips and "scraps" way too small for even woodturning and take them to local art teachers for students to use for creative things and give some to knife makers - lots of my excess are from exotic woods like cocobolo, ebony, bloodwood, etc. I also process a lot of green local wood into useful turning blanks and dry them - every year our club has a wood auction which puts a lot of wood in hands where it is appreciated AND brings in a lot of money for education and charity programs. Last year the auction brought over $1600.

If you are thinking about clearing things out, perhaps contact a local woodturning club. You can find clubs on the AAW web site: https://www.woodturner.org/page/Chapters

JKJ

[Gary Petersen]

I have a friend with whom I've gone on wood-buying trips a few times whose wife said she thinks I may have a wood problem. I'm not altogether certain she's wrong. I am certain, however, that sharing your story wouldn't help my case with her. :) I can relate to your story.

[Carl Beckett]

Hello, my name is Carl and I am a wood hoarder olic....

[David Buchhauser]

Hello, my name is Carl and I am a wood hoarder olic....

Supposed to be funny - but I don't get it. What is "olic"
David

[Jim Becker]

Supposed to be funny - but I don't get it. What is "olic"
David
Paraphrasing "alcoholic", with the "olic"...

-----

I hoard wood. It's not a disease. It's a fine human quality. :D

[Stan Calow]

my experience is that as soon as you get rid of it, you'll find a project for which it would have been perfect.

[Rick Alexander]

I use mostly rough sawn stuff off a woodmizer so I end up with more cutoffs and left over than usual. Luckily I do belong to a local club (Gwinnett Woodworkers Association) and there are quite a few scroll saw guys in the club that can turn the tinniest piece into gold. Doesn't work for all my cutoffs but makes me feel better about what I can offer.

[John K Jordan]

I use mostly rough sawn stuff off a woodmizer so I end up with more cutoffs and left over than usual. Luckily I do belong to a local club (Gwinnett Woodworkers Association) and there are quite a few scroll saw guys in the club that can turn the tinniest piece into gold. Doesn't work for all my cutoffs but makes me feel better about what I can offer.

Hey, next time I get down that way maybe I'll bring a tub of offcuts. I have 100s of lbs, a lot of it exotics. Who would I contact to see if they would want some?

JKJ

[Dave Mount]

I'm not only a wood hoarder (having a sawmill in the family is a pre-disposing condition) but I have the added disability of generally making something from the lowest quality piece I can find that still meets my needs. So I not only accumulate lumber, I accumulate really nice lumber that in my mind I'm "saving" for a project special enough to use it, but it never arrives. I know it's wrong thinking, don't bother to respond telling me so. My parents are Depression babies.

If any woodworkers show up at my estate auction (hopefully not soon), they're going to go home happy. I just know the cream of my woodworking lifetime will go into a pile and be sold for a song. "All for one money, who will give me $10 for this pile of dusty old lumber, looks like it's been lying around for decades. . ."

[Jack Frederick]

You are looking at this the wrong way. You do not "hoard" wood. You "collect and treasure" wood. Well, until you can't open the shop door!

[Darcy Warner]

I am sitting on 40k BF.

[Andrew Gibson]

For Instruments I was told not to build until the wood had been drying for at least 7 years. I have a coat closet full that is just about ready. I know because I put it in the closet about 6 years ago when we moved into the house.

[John K Jordan]

...until you can't open the shop door!

What's this "shop door" limitation?! I have useful wood stored in six locations around the farm here, seven if I count a stickered stack of cedar next to the sawmill. And still I'm cutting up more turning blanks to dry - in the last week or so some more cherry, maple, walnut, mimosa, privet, and bradford pear. And I finally cut into my last big chunk from what was at one time the largest recorded osage tree in the state of TN. That chunk sat outside on the ground in the sun for well over 10 years and it is still good inside. I estimated it weighed between 1500 and 2000 lbs before I started hacking on it a couple of days ago!

It's sometimes said that woodturning is the most addictive form of wood working. I think wood processing and "collecting" is worse. I've been processing green wood into turning blanks for a while - some of the blanks I'm using now I cut in 2006. The fantastic thing about having too much wood is when a student comes or if I want to make something myself there is always plenty to choose from!

JKJ

[Mike Nolan]

I don't know how many times I have dug a piece of wood out of the trash basket that is just what I now need. Perhaps because I recently handled it.

[Frank Pratt]

I have the added disability of generally making something from the lowest quality piece I can find that still meets my needs. So I not only accumulate lumber, I accumulate really nice lumber that in my mind I'm "saving" for a project special enough to use it, but it never arrives. I know it's wrong thinking, don't bother to respond telling me so.

I'm not much of a hoarder, but I completely understand you cause I have the same tendency to save the best stuff for some special future project that never materializes.

[Mike Cutler]

I'm not only a wood hoarder (having a sawmill in the family is a pre-disposing condition) but I have the added disability of generally making something from the lowest quality piece I can find that still meets my needs. So I not only accumulate lumber, I accumulate really nice lumber that in my mind I'm "saving" for a project special enough to use it, but it never arrives. I know it's wrong thinking, don't bother to respond telling me so. My parents are Depression babies.

If any woodworkers show up at my estate auction (hopefully not soon), they're going to go home happy. I just know the cream of my woodworking lifetime will go into a pile and be sold for a song. "All for one money, who will give me $10 for this pile of dusty old lumber, looks like it's been lying around for decades. . ."

You Too!!!

If anyone finds out I kicked it, you want the board being used as a shelf over my work bench. ;) It's 4/4, 11' long, 17" wide, Birdeye Movinque. I've never seen another like it.It would make a killer acoustic guitar body. Don't know how well it would sound, but man would it be pretty!!
Pay no attention to the "dunnage" bracing a chainfall in the rafters. If you're a rosewood fan, well,,,,,,,,,
Oh, and someone please grab the nasty looking "shorts" "holding down the work bench". Gotta be 500lbs. of cocobolo there.

[Jim Becker]

I don't know how many times I have dug a piece of wood out of the trash basket that is just what I now need. Perhaps because I recently handled it.
That's the absolute truth and the nature of the conundrum...keep the stuff around and it piles up to the point it's hard to manager or not have "that one piece" that would have made a difference.

[Pete Staehling]

I keep a lot of small, medium, and large wood pieces and some might call it hoarding, but I don't think I keep much that doesn't actually make sense. A lot of what I "hoard" is in the category of actually being considered special enough that I don't want to waste it until that "just right" project for it comes along. There are those pieces that are not so special but are just okay and just waiting for a use that they will work for. Sure, there are a few pieces that are really just junk, but they tend to wind up in the fireplace over the winter if they don't get used for making jigs or stakes in the garden or something so they get weeded out with some frequency.

I guess the closest thing I do to hoarding is when I consider something so special that I won't use it. I used to do that a lot especially after I paid a stupidly high price for some beautiful curly english walnut. It sat around forever. Since then I have found more and more really special wood at not so crazy prices I have gotten over that bad habit of not using really nice lumber.

I have since bought equally nice or nicer lumber for prices that were 10-20% the price I paid for that piece. Also I realized that in my work the wood is actually a fairly small percentage of the final cost of the product even when I overpaid for it when you factor in my time, overhead, and so on. So I started just using it, sparingly maybe, and only for nicer projects, but without too much hesitation. I might charge a bit more for the end product. How much more might have more to do with how scarce I consider the wood than with what I paid for it. If it was free, I have only one little piece, and am likely to never see another one like it, I remind myself that it is more valuable than something i overpaid for, but can find again possibly at a better price next time (or maybe not).