save some wood

[masonsailor2]

It's a side effect of the wood addiction. One ends up with this scrap pile with the dream that some day I am going to glue it all together and make this amazing turning which I never seem to get to. We have an outdoor fireplace and the wife BBQ'd steaks over Paduak scraps. Nothing really that big but I started to have words about it and was told that the steaks would be fine. End of discussion. Oh well.
Paul

[JPG]

It's a side effect of the wood addiction. One ends up with this scrap pile with the dream that some day I am going to glue it all together and make this amazing turning which I never seem to get to. We have an outdoor fireplace and the wife BBQ'd steaks over Paduak scraps. Nothing really that big but I started to have words about it and was told that the steaks would be fine. End of discussion. Oh well.
Paul

To prevent a future occurrence, go get some mesquite.

[robinson46176]

Our old house is quite large and we heat it almost completely with a wood burning furnace. A pickup load of wood generally last about 10 days depending on outside temps. Some days when I start chucking wood in the furnace it about kills me to do it.
We burn some really nice "turning blocks". I have a few nice pieces of hedge laid back that I want to use to turn a batch of file handles and some handles for some old style socket handle wood chisels, some of which I have bought for almost nothing at garage sales etc.
Right now I am cutting up the tops of 4 large Chinese elm trees that were dying badly. They were across in front of the house and near the power lines at the road. We planted them in about 1952. I'm saving the logs for the little Woodmizer LT-10 sawmill. Since I no longer climb trees I had asked the power company to drop them. I used to be a lot braver about trees I took down near houses or power lines but I have become a lot more cautious as I have aged. The tree service the power company used of course used a bucket truck and dismantled them from the top down. One of those deals where They only got the limbs on the ground in bigger pieces and we are responsible for all cleanup. I'm about at a standstill this week as there is heavy ice everywhere and on everything. It will all melt today thankfully.
When I was ready to start cutting them up I was finding that my chainsaws which have not had much use in recent years were needing work so I bought a new Stihl saw (love that easy start feature) as I have a lot of cutting to do this year. While I was getting started our 42 year old son (lives just down the road at the end of the farm) just showed up with his saw and cut up the tops of 2 of the trees by the time I was getting a solid start. Yes, I have slowed down a lot. Still, I was doing OK for an old guy with a dicky ticker...
Right now we are just burning the dead parts which was maybe 20% of the wood. Very hard and dry. The rest I will stack and cover to dry. It will be fine to burn by next fall. I have enough big dead trees just here on the farm to take down to keep me supplied with dry firewood the rest of this winter just burning the limbs.
I'm just finishing the installation of a new wood burning furnace I bought last spring/summer. It is larger and a lot more convenient than the old one. The old one is moving to the farm shop next week. I should have the new one finished up by tomorrow.
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We had been buying all of our wood for the last few years because of my health issues and I was thinking about that today. I know that a lot of you are turners and that some of you spend quite a bit of $$$ to get wood for it. It occurred to me that for some of you might save a good bit by contacting someone in your area that sells firewood regularly. Most of these guys would be happy to sell you wood for turning especially wood from tree crotches etc. that is highly figured. They don't like splitting that stuff. Depending on what you want you might even find an advantage to just buy a load of fire wood (about $60 delivered here) and sort through it and save nice pieces and then sell what is left to someone that burns wood. Many firewood guys would be happy to bring you un-split wood in bigger blocks if you preferred. I've found most quite willing to work with you.
Just a thought...


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[algale]

I have a nicely wooded lot with many mature red oaks and a few other species. Over the years, some of these trees became a hazard to house (one hit us!) and we take them down as money allows (I'll fell a tree that isn't close to the house but not if it overhangs). Then we had 8 large mature Bradford pears which started to split apart at the main trunk in storms, as they tend to do, so we cut them down too.

We cut all of them in to fireplace lengths and split them and after seasoning burn them in the fireplace. The Bradford pear seems to burn hotter and more completely than the red oak. I gave a hunk of the Bradford to a woodworking friend and he made a beautiful spalted box out of it. So I know I'm burning up potential projects, but in a lifetime I could never use it all. But every once in a while as I'm getting ready to toss a chunk on the fire, I'll see some really great colored or textured piece and I'll think, "I should take this to the shop and work with it." Then I'll look over at SWMBO and toss it on the fire.

Our fireplace has an old Heatform steel insert. I don't think they make these anymore but they were popular in the 60s and 70s They aren't as efficient as wood burning stoves but they do substantially increase the efficiency of a regular wood burning fireplace by capturing some of the waste heat via closed pipes running across the flue and returning that heat through vents. Keeps the first floor of the house pretty toasty.