The beginnings of work benches

[Tom Bussey]

The wood is Ash, the thickness is 1 1/16, and the width is 19". And I like building workbenches. The log was just over 17 foot. I gave the other half to the sawyer for his work. We loaded it on his trailer and took it to his mill about 3 miles away.

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The next two are proceeds of a dead ash tree, which is not at the sawyers, yet to be cut up. We haven't worked out the details as of yet. The person sawing off the crotch isn't me. I will have to square the log the old fashioned way. I will have to saw to lines and then use wedges and a big sludge hammer because I do not have a broad ax. The old term is hueing to a line I believe. The diameter is 9 inches larger than his mill will cut. The split is only in the bark which we pealed of the tree

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And the last two are of me and my wife not wasting any part of the tree. She is 76 and I am 77 and we split 100 % of what you see. People like to post pictures of their projects, and this is just a different slant on the long fall project. I will admit I like working wood but the last part did get a little old.

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[Mark Rainey]

Satisfying work Tom. You wil be warm this winter. Was that dead ash tree a victim of the ash borer?

[Tom Bussey]

Their were 11 trees on two acres of land and all 11 were victims. I got the big ones because nobody wanted to mess with them. The others were only about 15 inches in diameter. The trees came from the property of the little Brown Church here in Nashua. It is both a historical sight, and an actual church that holds services every Sunday. It is also famous for weddings and such. My wife and I eloped and were married there 53 years ago. There is a song written about it. The little Brown Church in the Vale and it actually gets buss tours.

So, there is a little more to the wood than meets it eye.

[Ron Citerone]

Pretty cool! I am sure it became a little old but making the benches and keeping warm from the fires will bring a lot of satisfaction in the not to distant future.

[Mark Gibney]

I enjoyed your story and history lesson Tom.