Lumber

Old Pine Boards from my scrap pile

  I received a call this week from a friend who called to tell me that he was taking down this large cedar tree and wanted to know if I would be interested in the trunk.   The base was about 30 inches wide and 30 feet up the trunk was about 8 inches across.     I can get pretty excited over the possibility of recouping some lumber out of a local tree.  (Just come and take a look at my scrap lumber storage shed some day.)   This would be cedar wood.   Something that I don't have on hand and something that I would use up in future projects.   (Right now I would trade off the family cat in a heartbeat to have ownership of some cedar boards.)  I have found this neat web site where you can plug in the above measurements and it tells you of how many board feet you could harvest out of a log that size.    Best case scenario in this situation would be about 226 board feet.  More likely one would end up with 200 board feet.  After spending $250 to buy the log and having it cut my cost would be $1.25 a board foot.   Pretty cheap for good cedar wood.  

Look at all the wood  shavings -
Camp fire starters anyone?

   In the old days I would have jumped in with both feet to acquire that cedar log.    But currently it has been my goal to reduce the size of the pile of lumber that I have on hand - not add to it.  Part of the problem is that I still would have to wait at least two years for the lumber to dry down to a level where it can be used in projects.  Another issue is having 226 board feet of cedar on hand does not mean I will ever use it all up.  (I see a big bon fire in my future prior to my nursing home days.)   So reluctantly I past up on the offer.  (Sad face - Sad face!)
   What I have been doing lately is cleaning up some old pine boards that I have had on hand for over 10 years.    They were rough cut to just over 1 inch thick.    These that I had selected were run through my thickness planner until they were 3/4 of an inch thick.    I then ran them over my joiner and through my table saw so that they would be an even width.

There is approximately $70 in lumber pictured here

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               When I had reached this point I got on the computer to see if I had traveled to Menards and purchased this pine lumber how much would I have spent.  Or maybe the question would be - "how much did I save by doing this"?  (Let's just say that all hobbies tend to create a little expense for the those that are involved with what they play with.  Note to self:  don't check out prices again.)

Wood from great grandpa's farm. 

  The boards laying on the table in the picture to the left are the boards I plan to use in my next project.    I have shared this before and I feel it has some merit worthy of sharing again. When you have your own lumber that came from a tree that has a story to it - the project seems to have a life of it's own.   Example:   These boards came from a tree grown on my in-laws farm.




Next week I will show you a simple little project that was made from these boards.    Enjoy the summer.