Wood Art #2: Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever
It is a pretty awesome photo, but I won’t repost it here. Check it out over on NPR, which also has an article about it, a movie on the making-of, and a slideshow.
Wood Art #1: Tania Kovats' TREE
At 17m long, TREE is London’s Natural History Museum’s largest botanical specimen. It is a wafer-thin shaving through the entire 200 year old tree from roots to branch tips. The video shows Tania Kovats’ journey through finding the tree, deciding how to bring it down, learning how to have it resawn, CNC machined thin, and dried, and the ultimate hanging on the ceiling of the mezzanine gallery behind the Central Hall. Quite some board feet she left behind at the mill. She...
Large bench made from the tree that stood in the grounds.
I am working on yet another piece and thought I’d share me project so far with you guys. The Magnolia ‘Salicifolia’ tree had stood in the grounds of the Inner Temple on London’s Thames for over 80 years but due to a fungus it had to come down. My original plan was to use the timber as a practice piece that I could use my new Arbortech grinder on, however whilst the guys where cutting the tree down the girl in charge of the gardens asked what I would do with the t...
Tasty Apples
My fathers neighbor recently cut down one of his apple treesAnd this morning my father called and wondered if i wanted to have some of it, so we went over and loaded it all up on the trailer, well all but 1 huge piece that must have weighed 300kg or so, unfortunately he had already promised that piece for his son -.- (probably gonna make firewood out of it cries) So i got all the other large branches and stuff, some of it was rotten before they cut it down by the looks of it, and theres so...
Is there such a thing as *too much* Jacaranda? Let's find out...
In part 2 of this saga, I got a call from Camille who’s lawn was coated in freshly fallen, fungally rotten Jacaranda mimosifolia. Her call awoke me with a start this morning, and soon I was at her house, borrowing her electricity for my electric chainsaw, and cutting up what I could. One heat stroke, or heat exhaustion later, and I drove away with a truck full of limbs. I ran home for my second shower and change, then off to work, then ran home at lunch (nice living 1.5 miles away) to d...
found wood #11: O frabjous day! Free Jacaranda!
In yesterday's dramatic episode, Camille – the homeowner who’s Jacaranda mimosifolia street tree fell over due to fungal rot at the base – was very concerned about a whole host of things that might happen if she allowed me to cut up the tree and take a bunch with me. She was rather justified about some of it, perhaps much of it, but that didn’t help eager me, of course. This morning, after waiting a whole day for the street crew to come by as promised, she’d h...
found wood #10: Full, fallen Jacaranda mimosifolia tree - wish me luck!
I take different routes on my daily commutes to see if any limbs or trees have come down. Today, taking a road I never take, I hit the jackpot – a full, large, old Jacaranda tree with fungus rot through its base fell over on its own this morning, on a windless, quake-free day, narrowly missing a pedestrian. I knocked on the door and a nice lady answered, holding back her dog. We talked for a half hour, but she had an endless stream of concerns, all of which I tried to answer: ...
Wood IDs #16: The American Woods - 350 N. American species specimens
I just tumbled into a fantastic vat of info hosted by the Special Collections Research Center of the NCSU Libraries. ”Radial, tangential, and cross-sections of 350 North American woods from the 14-volume rare book The American Woods, published between 1888 and 1910 by the author, Romeyn Beck Hough. The images can be accessed by volume number or by the scientific or common name of each tree.” http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/forestry/hough/index.html The 600DPI i...
found wood #7: No, not MORE huge Eucalyptus logs!
I tried to get in touch with the guy who put the logs out in Canoga Hills to see if there were any of the 5 I had left on my last/first trip remaining, and if it would be worth the 30 minute drive. He never got back to me, but I noticed he reposted on craigslist a few days later that he put 15 more logs out there. That night after work I headed up. I’d wanted to find metal brackets that turn 2×8 or 2×10 planks into ramps that lay on the tailgate, so I could dolly the logs r...
found wood #6: Ficus microcarpa - MAKE IT STOP - 3rd and 4th hauls
A bit over a week ago I found some logs outside a neighbor’s place down the street while on my way home from work on a Friday night. They were Ficus microcarpa (AKA Chinese banyan, AKA Indian Laurel, AKA curtain fig, AKA etc…). Almost a week later – a few days ago – I found another load of the same logs in the same spot on my way home for lunch. This morning while heading into work, I passed the same spot, and the biggest haul yet was sitting there. I was running a few...
