General Craft & DIY discussion

I grew up on a farm & was a remodeler for years. I thought I knew something about trees & wood until I started turning found wood. Then I realized I was pitifully ignorant on the subject.

I knew some major tree names, but they were common names which vary widely, even in the same area. For instance, the Black Locust I grew up with in MD is known as the Yellow Locust here in KY. Many people argue about the difference between Black & Red Oaks since the grouping changed (I think) & many old timers call them Black while the books call them Red. Worse, species of Red/Black Oaks interbreed, so no one really knows how many there are. Depending on the year, the USFS lists over 250.

I was limited to construction wood & local trees that we used on the farm for firewood & building. Many of these were lumped under the 'Trash Wood' category since they weren't good for firewood or building. I didn't even know a common name for many of those. Some were awesome. The Box Elder, AKA Swamp Maple, gets a fungus from the Box Elder bug that causes bright red streaks to show up in the creamy, soft wood. It's absolutely amazing.

I hate being ignorant on general principles & it was really frustrating not to know what kind of wood I was turning, so I started trying to identify trees. It's not easy. In fact, it's often quite difficult. Most books that identify trees don't say anything about the wood & vice versa. Most books that discuss lumber just talk about commercial varieties & don't have a thing in them about the rest.

Much of my wood was found along the road when people cut a tree down in their front yard or the electric lines were trimmed. Often this happened in the winter when ice storms or accidents took the tree out & there weren't any leaves, so I was continually frustrated by my National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region.

Over the past decade, I've been trying to cure my ignorance. I joined the IWCS, International Wood Collector's Society, & found some wonderful books, A Guide To Useful Woods Of The World & A Guide to More Useful Woods of the World that show a bit about both the wood & the tree, a pretty perfect bridge.

The Woodbook is BEAUTIFUL. Originally made (& written) in the late 1800's, the 17 (?) volumes actually had wood samples in them. Some of the scientific names are wrong, but my reprint has gorgeous color plates of hundreds of species of wood. It's lovely & a great way to see what cut wood looks like.

What books do you have & use for figuring out trees?

One of my favorite books about wood is A Reverence for Wood by Eric Sloane. Sloane wrote quite a few books about Colonial America & even built a couple of log cabins. He's probably best known as a painter & started off painting airplanes for many of the early fliers.

A Reverence for Wood isn't really an in-depth look at wood, but more of a quick 'sketch' of some of the major ones & how they were used in Colonial times. It's full of his pen & ink drawings which really make the wood come alive.

Is anyone else familiar with Sloane's work? Years ago, I had his book Eighty: An American Souvenir/Limited Slipcased Edition, but someone borrowed it & I didn't get another copy until a year so ago. It's kind of an informal autobiography & is full of full color plates of many of his paintings. My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Jim wrote: "Is anyone else familiar with Sloane's work? "

I have three of his smaller books in my library, primarily as reference material for my artwork.

Recollections in Black and White

Eric Sloane's an Age of Barns

A Museum Of Early American Tools

I can simply lose myself in the book about the barns.

I'll bet that "Recollections in B&W" is gorgeous. Sloane is wonderful in that medium. In "Eighty" he mentions that he did a sketch for Robert Redford off the cuff. Lacking a pencil, he did it with a chocolate bar! Redford apparently framed & kept it.

I think I've looked through a barns book, but I'm pretty sure it was American Barns and Covered Bridges. My step father had quite a few, including "Early American Tools", which is fantastic.

Besides those I mentioned in my previous message, I also have:
ABC Book of Early Americana
Eric Sloane's America
As I recall, there is a fair amount of duplication in these with each other & some of his other work.

For Spacious Skies: A Sketchbook of American Weather - he was a weatherman & did a lot of sky/cloud painting. I can't say that I care all that much for it.

I had Diary of an Early American Boy, but it was in bad shape & I can't find it now. It may well have fallen apart & I tossed it. I need to find another copy.

Not being able to find 'Diary' bugged me, so I logged on to Abebooks.com & searched for Eric Sloane. They have quite a few copies of a half dozen of his books for $1 plus $3 shipping. I couldn't resist, so I ordered:

Diary of an Early American Boy
Eric Sloane's Sketches of America Past
Recollections in Black and White
A Museum of Early American Tools

All are used, one was a library book, but I had a 10% coupon, so it all came to only $15, a pretty good bargain.

I get handed old, busted furniture to fix fairly often. My mother is into antiques & we have a few, too. When I have to make a new piece for them, it's nice to know what kind of wood it was. Between age & stains or paints, that's not always easy.

Identifying Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley isn't for everyone, but I liked it & learned a lot. He shows how to use magnifiers & microscopes to look at the wood to identify it.

Perhaps the coolest thing that came of my reading this book was getting a microscope to hook up to my PC. It's a kid's toy & sells for about $75, but it opens up a whole new world. Looking at a tiny ant on the PC screen is pretty awesome. I was so amazed by it that I wrote up a review for "World of Wood" magazine. I reposted it here on GR:
http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2...

If you have kids or grandkids, I'd suggest looking into one.

Jim wrote: "Not being able to find 'Diary' bugged me, so I logged on to Abebooks.com & searched for Eric Sloane.

I'll bet that "Recollections in B&W" is gorgeous. Sloane is wonderful in that medium."

I've gotten quite a few books that way. When I relocated from MT to KY I had everything in storage while I was hauling horses and ended up losing it in a fire. First thing I started replacing, of course, were the books and many of mine were older and out of print.

There were quite a few, fortunately, that were much less expensive than when I first purchased them ... others have been difficult to find, especially some of the art books and outrageously expensive.

I work mostly in black and white, so tend to 'collect' books that are illustrated by pen and ink or pencil drawings. The first book I remember receiving as a gift (I was maybe 6 years old) was a book written and illustrated by Paul Brown, a noted artist as well as writer, who illustrated his own books. I not only read this book until it was practically falling apart, I used it as a 'textbook' when I was learning to draw horses.

This one was actually lost in the house fire that destroyed the ranch house, but Internet access allowed me to find a replacement, finally. I even blogged about it.

http://sharon-familymemories.blogspot...

That's an awesome blog post, Sharon. So sorry to hear about your house burning down, though. It's so cool that you could replace a book that meant so much, too.

I remember always wanting to swim with my pony, too. My desire came from Misty of Chincoteague & other books of those islands, though. My parents took me there for the pony swim in the mid 60's once. I was totally enthralled.

I guess it stuck. Take a look at my profile picture & you'll see that I'm on my pony, Chip, splashing in our pond. Unfortunately, it isn't usually deep enough when it's warm enough for swimming. Still, we have fun.

I just finished A Reverence for Wood by Eric Sloane. I actually read it in Eric Sloane's Sketches of America Past. Excellent, as always. My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I need to add some of my art books. Bad weather is supposed to set in so if I'm less willing to go outside and play with the horses, maybe I'll get some of these projects done.

Goals for 2013 ... right?

I just finished Brush Cat: On Trees, the Wood Economy, and the Most Dangerous Job in America. I was really looking forward to reading it from the description. Unfortunately, it was a bust. My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

What, no insights into taking down a Y shaped pine widowmaker balancing in the crotch of a maple twenty feet up? Thanks for warning me!

(solution, lots of rope, NO power tools and climb above it when you hand saw it.)

To hear Jack tell it, even dressed up like a knight going to joust, he's no good at cutting up firewood - part of the problem with the book. If it had been titled "Some Personal Observations of Local Loggers in the North East" I might have given it one more star. It wasn't all bad. I do wonder how the guy makes a living writing, though. He came across more like a hobbyist.

Personally, I almost always use a chainsaw because I get more control in the cut, even while hanging in a tree. I've been known to use a hand axe or hatchet on occasion, but rarely. I gave away my tree spikes not long after we got here, though. We don't have any big trees near the house or barns & the ones in the woods can fend for themselves if I can't toss a rope around them to yank them off with the tractor. Most of them shake out during a storm at some point. That's the safest way to take care of them.
;-)

Eventually they all come down naturally. I only take down snags or widowmakers if they threaten the walking trails, and then only if I can do it safely.

I never never never climb a tree with a chainsaw!!!! I've seen how fast catching the tip can do rip into an arm or a face when they catch just wrong.

Here in Maine we lose three to five backyard "lumber jacks" a year to snags and widowmakers, as every "real man" claims to be an expert logger. I sure don't! Even after all the precautions in the world, if I hadn't been able to jump like a rabbit one time when a snag came down in a totally unexpected direction I'd have been clobbered and smushed.

I've been cutting hedgerows out of the bucket of a tractor since I was a teen & climbing trees with a saw almost as long. I spent most of one summer taking torn up trees down next to houses. Knock on wood, I've never hurt myself with a chainsaw, but I've busted a couple by tossing them away if things got dicey. They're dangerous, just like any other power tool. They're expensive, too. Not as expensive as I am, though. No contest.
;-)

You're right about how fast a chainsaw can tear a person up & when you're dealing with trees, thousands of pounds of pressure going the-gods-know-where, doodoo happens. I about brained myself with a log popping up at me one time. Turned out it was sitting on a piece of high tensile fencing that we couldn't see & the 2' diameter log jumped about 7' in the air as I finished the cut.

I laughed when I read in 'Brush Cats' that trees never fall uphill. My stepfather had a real knack for felling trees - they never fell where he wanted them to. Rip had a tree leaning downhill & he wanted it to fall downhill. He parked well uphill of it & his 80 year old father waited in the truck. He notched & cut the tree. It started falling downhill, circled & fell straight uphill, the top branches landing on the hood of his truck. His father about had a heart attack. Murphy lives for cocksure weekend loggers, but he must have been working over time that day. Rip never could explain how that one happened.

A good friend of ours, a guy about my age & a logger all his life, just died a couple of years ago from a limb falling out of a tree 2 over from the one he cut. His 25 year old son held him in his arms while he died. Jack is still logging. As he said, none of us ever quit riding & we've known a lot more people dead from that than trees. Jack was there when my son James about gasped his last breath after his horse broke its leg & pawed him across the chest. Luckily, a week on life support & James was pretty much fine again. He still rides.

Chainsaws are dangerous, much more so than the usual dangerous power tool! Also incredibly useful!

I wouldn't dream of cutting a years worth of firewood like they did in the old days, with a bucksaw! I do have several two man saws, but other than ambience for the garage not very useful once you have a chainsaw.

I just bought a cheap chain sharpener from Northern tool last year. Hardly a precision instument, but it's faster, easier than better than my hand sharpening.

I got one of those cheap chainsaw sharpeners a couple of years ago, too. No, they're not precision tools & eat far too much tooth up, but I rarely use it. I keep my chains touched up with a hand file pretty well. The one I have on my little saw now even hit a piece of wire grown into a tree & I managed to get it cutting good again. I only resort to the power sharpener when I can't fix it up with a file.

It's funny that you say how dangerous chainsaws are. I was talking to a guy that traveled around doing chainsaw sculptures at fairs. I mentioned how I'd gotten a chainsaw like wheel for my 4" grinder & how much I liked it. He said he wouldn't use one - they're too dangerous.

I have a couple of those big old saws, both a buck & rip saw. I spent quite a while sharpening the rip saw & talked one of my sons into helping me try it out. It went up on the wall in short order. We barely tried the buck saw. I like my motor!
;-)

Yeah, I haven't really done a big job with the sharpeneer yet, such as the firewood in the spring where it needs sharpened daily, or working in the woods in Autumn where it needs sharpened daily for weeks on end. I used it a few times with a nearly dead chain, and while the teeeth were nice and sharp there was so little left of the teeth before I used the sharpener it wasn't really a good measure of efficiency as the rake tooth was in the way at that point. I'm hoping once the chain has been sharpened once the wheel will line up well enough to allow vary fine cuts.

On occasion when I've had the Husqvarna saw in for repairs I've had the shop hit the chain. They use a more precision sharpener but it doesn't take excessive amounts off.

Economically files cost more than the chain over time, so if I don't have to buy files the sharpner will easily pay for itself.

My sharpener is plastic & has enough give that it will never do fine cuts, especially not like I can get by hand. The main trick is to keep the teeth the same length & it's good for getting that right if I make sure to pull it exactly the same way each time. That's why I only use it when my chain gets too beat up.

Files don't cost much & last a really long time. Instead of sharpening once a day, hit the saw every other tank or so. That's what I've always done. It only takes a minute. Depends on the wood, saw, & all, but it really helps. If you're using a long bar, it's a must. I used a 6' bar when cutting table top slices of a big old maple. Sometimes I'd have to stop in the middle of a cut to tune the chain. The end would curve off otherwise. All it took was a bit of dirt or something.

I don't understand how the rake tooth would get in the way of sharpening, but I hit mine with a swipe of the file about every other sharpening. As the teeth get shorter, you have to take them down since they set the depth & the shorter the tooth, the less reach & depth it cuts. I like a pretty aggressive cut, especially with my Stihl 056. I only have a 30" bar on it (It will take up to a 6' one.) so it has power to spare. I want shavings, not sawdust. I have to go lighter with my little saw (MS 180?), though. It's starts easy, is really nice & light, but isn't exactly over-powered.

Files don't last as long if you use one of those handle guides or saw back & forth with them. I often don't have a handle on them at all, but they should be rotated as they're used & only against the metal on the push stroke. If they hit the metal as you pull back, it dulls them up really fast.

My chain sharpness depends on what I'm cutting, sometimes dull evan after just a couple hours. Also sharpening with a file hurts my creaky hands... so I will figure out how to make the sharpener work!

I'm not sure either of my saws runs for more than 30 minutes on a tank of gas, so I'm sharpening every hour. The creaky hand thing sucks. Yeah, you'd best get it working just so. That's a drag.

Marg was watching "Antiques Road Show" last night. It was 'the best free deals' or something similar. Mostly stuff found in attics or dumpsters. They had some wild ones. I want to go buy an old house just to look in the attic & eves.

She thought I might be interested in a set of books & saved the program for me. I was & recognized the set immediately & made her laugh (which sent her into a coughing fit). It was Romeyn Beck Hough Hough's Encyclopaedia Of American Woods!!! Some folks had found it in the attic of a house they bought in the 70's & kept it around until they brought it to the road show in 2010. They found out it was worth $30,000.

This book is still one of the best off all books on woods because Hough patented a process to slice super thin slivers of wood & mounted them on the pages of the original volumes. A decade ago they did a reprint of it in one volume with just pictures, no actual wood. It is titled The Woodbook. My review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Marg laughed (another coughing fit) at my copy which is stuffed with various notes & more pictures, even a few slides & pieces of veneer. She thought she was going to show me something neat & new, but it's pretty obvious that I'm fairly well acquainted with this rather obscure book.

Just for fun, I googled it this morning. You can see all the page plates here:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollec...

A quick overview with some pictures are here:
http://www.nypl.org/blog/2012/03/12/h...

I even found a complete, if edition mixed set, for sale on Ebay. If I only had $28,500.00 extra, I'd buy it!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/14Vols-HOUGHS...

I had fun night before last going to a fairly new local sawmill with a friend. Nice guys working there & we both bought some great stuff. They have a firewood pile that I plan to raid next time I want some large bowl blanks, but I'll have to bring my chainsaw with me. They said I could use theirs, but I don't like using other people's tools. I think I might get ripping blades for mine, anyway. I do a fair amount of it & they might help me get a better cut.

I got out of there for under $150 & they threw in a girly calendar for free. It features a few very pretty local girls fully clothed, but in some provocative poses - if you think a girl in work boots with a tape measure can be sexy. Well, I like them & it's a perfect shop calendar.

Here's the sawmill's web site. You should look at the natural edge slabs they sell & the project page. Awesome work.
http://www.bagdadlumber.com/

Apparently I'm the only person on GR to have read & rated Ancient Carpenters' Tools: Illustrated and Explained, Together with the Implements of the Lumberman, Joiner and Cabinet-Maker in Use in the Eighteenth Century by Henry C. Mercer. This can only mean I am a woodworking nerd since it was originally published in 1925. It has been reissued several times since & is often referred to as one of the better books on the subject of historical woodworking tools. I gave it 4 stars here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

While cleaning up after the recent storm I found a largish limb of spalted maple. It had broken a few years ago, but remained on the tree. It wasn't hanging above anything and I can be lazy sometimes, so I left it there. The recent storm finished the break, and brought it down. When I looked at the broken end I saw the spalting, so I used a bow saw to cut it into logs. I ended up with three good 1' logs of about 6" diameter which haven't gone punky, but still show nice spalting on the ends.

I think that I can get several nice pen blanks and possible enough for a salt cellar or some very small bowls out of the logs I have. But I haven't worked with this type of material before so I have questions about how to store the logs/blanks so that they won't rot away, and if there are any precautions I should take while processing.

I would appreciate any good advice.

Cut it up into oversized pieces & wax the ends to reduce checking. Let it air dry for about a year per inch while laying flat & well stickered to allow air movement. I stick my oak fence boards out in the old tobacco barn & prefer to give them a full year plus several months in the shop.

Oversized pieces are a must. A lot of people whine about how a finished 1" board is only 3/4", but that means cleaning up the face by taking only 1/8" off both. That's not always enough. One of my local guys thinks 1" means 15/16" or even 7/8" so I won't buy from him any more. Most vary between a full 1" & 1-1/8" which is far better. Even with wax, ends will often check, especially on wood that has broken free. It's been stressed hard & those might not show until the wood is dried. I couldn't use half of the wood I got from the 2009 ice storm due to internal fractures.

For small pieces, I'll cut them oversized & then microwave them to dry them out. No need to wax the ends of these if you do it right away. I microwave for a minute or 3 on high, depending on the size & moistness of the piece, & then let it sit & cool. I repeat while I'm in the shop & then let it dry overnight.

Careful of microwaving too long, especially as it gets close to dry or you'll set the wood on fire just under the surface of the bottom center - at least that's where it happens on mine. After smoking up the kitchen a couple of times, my wife has a new microwave & I have the old one in the shop.

As I get close to what I think is dry, I weigh the piece on a cheap, Harbor Freight postal scale a minute or two after I take it out of the microwave. I let it sit for at least 30 minutes & weigh it again before I put it back in. When the piece is dry, it will weigh more before I put it back in than it did when it came out. It will gain a bit of water weight back. Let the piece sit a few days before actually using it. It still has some adjusting to do.

Another way to dry bigger pieces of wood faster is to put it in a tunnel of plastic with a small heater (small fan with light bulb or 2 works) at one end. Let the plastic fall down over the far end so it builds up a little pressure. It's supposed to keep the air flow steadier. I wouldn't use anything over 200w for the heating element on the one I built out of a tattered old kids play tunnel & was a bit nervous about that at first. I did wax the ends & the wood did dry a lot faster at first. It's been a while & stuff came up, but I think I was able to use the wood in about 6 months with no trouble.

I only tried this once. Found it a PITA, mostly due to all the checking & worry about fire. Just stacking it neatly in the barn is far easier.

Thank you for the advice. I was worried that the fungus would continue to eat the wood if it was seasoned wrong. I guess that once the wood is dry, the fungus will go dormant, if it isn't killed by direct heat. Do you have any advice on finishes? I figure that once a pen is covered in CA it is impervious to water, but I'm not certain about something like a salt cellar.

You're welcome. Spalted maple is gorgeous. I like to finish it with oil-based poly, specifically the fast drying Minwax which is very thin. The amber cast helps pop the colors in the maple better.

I have no idea how CA glue reacts with salt & it's primary purpose isn't a finish. I've heard people say you can use salt to get it off your hands, but I tried it & don't think it works any better than sand. It's the abrasive action, I think. Finishes tend to be fairly inert or have well known & documented antagonists in service.

I'm not sure even a degree in chemistry would help much with all the various glues & finishes available today. Most are obscured through marketing names & proprietary formulas. Here's an article I keep in my Pocket about glues:
http://www.chemistryexplained.com/A-A...

Here's the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoac...

I skimmed both, bu saw nothing about salt, but it says CA glue can be removed with sugar, so I'd avoid that.

Thank you. I think that you have pointed me in a productive direction.

We're getting rain again today. I'm kind of happy since I should get to spend time in the shop tonight. I have bowls to turn. I've been too busy doing outside chores in the good weather.

On Sunday, I dropped a maple at the kids' house that had been badly scarred years ago. It looked solid from a distance, but the scar was directly opposite the house & I figured it was rotting inside too, so would likely hit the house & definitely the fence in a few years if we left it. Best to take it out now, before we put in the fence.

It was tricky to drop since it was a bit over 60' tall & no tree with rot in it is ever easy. I managed to put it right where I wanted it & got a couple of good 12' logs out of it. Turns out it was rotting just like I thought, but was only dried out. No real rot above the scar yet. I was tickled that my guesses & all worked out so well. I love the new bar & chain on my saw, too. I got a 3' bar for my Stihl 056AV. It went through that 2' maple like butter.

The night before last, I got the logs over to the sawmill. Not a long trip. Dallas lives about a 1/2 mile down the road. He was going to charge me 40¢/board foot, but I talked him into doing it by the square foot instead. I don't know why he'd think of the former unless all he ever cuts are 1x boards. I want 5/4 & a 2x out of each log, so it would have cost me twice as much for half the cutting on the 2x. He's still making out since I just want the straight-line ripped which means he gets out of one full lengthwise cut.

I don't really want 5/4 boards, but I've bought lumber from him before & he doesn't measure thickness properly. A 1" rough cut to him includes the kerf, so the board comes out at 7/8". By the time I plane down a 7/8" rough cut board, 5/8" is all I can count on, but I should be able to get 3/4". Well, that's what you get dealing with a hobby sawmill.

I'll have to stack the boards in the barn for a couple of years to dry, but it's a good deal for maple. That's running $3.50 - $4/bf at Bagdad Sawmill, so this will be about 1/10th the cost. In the meantime, I cut the butt of the biggest log off so I can get some big bowls & should get a dozen smaller ones out of some upper logs.

That was fast! Dallas told me it would be a few days before he cut up my maple, but I guess the rain changed his plans, too. I got over a dozen boards about 12' long for $50 total. I guess the widest is just over a foot, but they're all straight line ripped, so one edge is wavy. I stacked them in the barn where they'll stay for a couple of years.

I dropped the logs up by Dallas' house since he had his skid loader there, but I had to drive down by the sawmill to pick up the boards. What a mess. It's in one of his back cow fields. Lucky I had 4WD as the only place to turn the truck & trailer around went through some pretty deep & slippery mud holes.

Wood is a handy substance, but now it's even better! They're making 'super wood' that's almost as strong as Kevlar. Others are making it transparent. Wow.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/st...

The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization was really good. A lot of interesting history & some of the science behind what makes wood such a versatile material. I found the last chapter about modern uses & climate change very interesting, too. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings was really interesting tracing the science behind dendrochronology including field trips, calibrating it to other forms of dating, & variations in climate. She also shows how the historical & regional data aligns with major historical events - droughts causing rebellions & more. If she hadn't gotten so strident & repetitive about recent climate change, I would have liked the book better, but the last quarter of the book was just too much. Still, I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...