I got the last 2 of the 5 sections built last week, sans the corrugated roofing. Here’s how I did it, at warp speed: This marked the first use of my new truck, for 2×4s and small ply panels from Home Depot. What a joy! As an aside, when I cut this particular 2×4 to length… ...I made a new friend. I think it’s a fat bird. As another side, whenever I stack up cut 2×4s like this, I get a terrific urge to build a deck, or workbench: ...
My bones haven’t finished knitting back together, and the gum tree chunks are still in the bed, but on the way back from a fast food run tonight, I saw a log pile on the grass in front of the sidewalk, right on my block! I backed up in front of the driveway there, and loaded one very large trunk piece, and a bunch of other large branch pieces in right on top of the eucalyptus. I have a feeling they were out all day, and people picked through the little stuff for firewood, leaving the la...
Here are some pics of the haul! This one shows a ton of Eucalyptus Longhorn Borer activity, just like the much tinier tree I found awhile ago: with raked lighting here: This log has something like quilting on two faces: Unfortunate checking going on here. I’ll have to see how deep it goes, and if it’s all the way through, I’ll have to learn a little something about filling and stabilizing. It would be a shame to have to turn all of these into ...
This is a bit old now, as I built these starting in late March this year, but I’m expanding them a bit now, and wanted to post some updates on that. That requires getting off my butt and posting the original stuff I’ve dragged my heels on. With the trees that have fallen over, and the random large branches I’ve managed to find here in LA, I had an awful lot of logs for a 0.18 acre lot. I recently mapped out my tiny 0.18 acre lot, breaking it into 30 equally sized squares, an...
Previously:Wood IDs #6: Found Eucalyptus tree in LA - part 1 of 3Wood IDs #7: Found Eucalyptus tree in LA - part 2 of 3Wood IDs #8: Found Eucalyptus tree in LA - part 3 of 3 It’s a bit labor intensive getting all the bark and Eucalyptus Longhorned Borer bug excretion cleaned off the Eucalyptus tree I cut up into logs from a nearby neighborhood. It dawned on me a couple weeks ago that I could use a wire wheel brush in my drill press. I’ve used the technique to brush up aluminum ...
A couple weeks ago I passed some tree trimmers cutting up a handful of paperbark trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia). I passed a few times on lunchtime errands, and finally decided to stop and ask for some free wood. I’ve been so curious for 5 years now about what’s underneath the spongy, peeling bark of these trees. You can punch the trunks and leave a deep imprint of your hand, which swells back up eventually, hiding the dent. It doesn’t hurt, because they feel like a s...
I decided to update my old toy version of my ‘00 Ford Focus hatchback to more accurately reflect the typical look of its big brother these days. I’ve made a couple of trips for Eucalyptus that have looked very much like this, complete with long branches sticking out the window :) Big version:
This branch, found a week ago now, was a mystery for awhile, but then I accidentally identified it while looking up something about paperbark trees, which are in some ways related. Callistemon, or Bottlebrush Trees, in the Myrtaceae family, are – like many LA trees – native to Australia. My coworker and officemate, who knows about my log and tree-collecting shenanigans told me one morning that the city had roped off a big branch that had fallen. He saw it on his drive in to work. ...
You folks helped me to ID this as probably a California Bay Laurel, blown down a pretty strong wind storm a week ago. I’m still going to research it, but for now, it needed to be sealed up against the checking that had already begun. I wanted some good pics of the cross sections before they get their coat of sealer. I have 2 gallons of Anchorseal in shipment now from the source, and I’m wondering if I should have gotten the 5gal bucket. Meanwhile, last week I picked up 2 quarts of...
I was putting in the rafters on my shed roof today, when while taking a break I noticed a message on my machine from a friend. He had spotted a fallen tree, which didn’t make it through today’s heavy wind storms here in LA. I grabbed my Irwin carpenter saw – the best hand saw I’ve used so far for wet logs (I’ve tried 3 now) – and headed out in my inadequate hatchback. It’s getting traded in for a truck soon, hooray. This was the pile I found: ...
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