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Thread: Scrapping old projects

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Mt Pleasant SC
    Posts
    721

    Scrapping old projects

    I built an awesome entertainment center back when TV’s were smaller. Years later I modified it to hold a 50 inch and used it for awhile longer. It had about 16 bd ft of mahogany in it and the rest mahogany plywood. I took it apart, ripped and planed the wood. Lost some due to biscuits and curves but ended up with enough to build an end table and part of another project. The mahogany started out 5/4 when new. Recycling at its best

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    South Coastal Massachusetts
    Posts
    6,824
    Particularly smart when you need plywoid for any reason. That stuff has become expensive.

  3. #3
    I've done the same. No point wasting good material if I have the time to save it.
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    North Alabama
    Posts
    548
    I built one back when TVs were bulkier, component stereo setups were still popular, and media PCs were a relatively obscure, nerdy idea (and PCs couldn't be had in compact forms like they are today). I was still tinkering with the details of this cabinet as recently as a couple or three years ago. Walnut frame and panel construction, finished with BLO and shellac, my absolute favorite look for walnut.

    I was really happy with it, but it's no longer what we need in the house or a match with the other furniture in the room where we need to locate our TV. I suppose there's a chance I can pass it along to our college student when she needs to furnish another place, but more likely I'll be dismantling and recycling it one day. That's a depressing thought, at least for me. Aren't the things I build supposed to last forever?
    Chuck Taylor

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Itapevi, SP - Brazil
    Posts
    672
    In this quarantine this recycling process was particularly important to provide me some material for fun.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,638
    Recycling/upcycling is a good practice...it fits my "no waste" mentality, too. It's good that you could take that older piece of furniture that was no longer viable to use with changes in technology and turn it into something new for a new job in your home.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Falls Church, VA
    Posts
    2,330
    Blog Entries
    1
    I call it archived wood. I have some wood from the ranch in Montana where my dad grew up. I have wood from the house my mom was born in in 1911. I have my dads first desk (a library table) broken down and labeled.

    The Montana Ranch is gone now. All the buildings were torn down and some rich person built a 'ranch' in it's place. They wanted a babbling mountain stream so they put in a holding pond and some giant pumps. So the only thing really left of the original ranch is my wood and GPS coordinates. I used a bit of the wood (from a horse barn) to make Christmas ornaments the shape of Montana with a brass pin marking the location of the ranch. The GPS coordinates are on the back.

    My mom's birth house is still there. I was lucky to drop by when they were doing some renovations and they let me have some wood from the original house. I turned hollow Christmas ornaments for my family. That was sort of a bad idea. That pine had really hardened and I had more than a few explosions of the brittle wood.

    There was a house undergoing major renovations down the street. I had made friends with the supervisor and he called me over one day. It seems they had torn out some built in painted shelving and he found that it was mahogany. He couldn't bear to throw it into the dumpster so he gave it to me.

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