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136K views 211 replies 73 participants last post by  baller 
#1 ·
HUGE Eucalyptus score

Sheesh. Good thing I have a truck now.

I saw a note on craigslist today (online classifieds) that a guy had put "10 to 15 more" eucalyptus logs out in the alleyway behind his house. LA is all blocks split in half by access alleys big enough to drive 2 cars through (barely). The Google directions were a little wonky (didn't name one of the roads, had me lost for an hour), and so a 47mi. round trip turned into a 75mi. round trip, and there were an incredible number of cop detours, road constructions, and things like a row of cars in each lane, side by side, all doing half the speed limit for miles so I couldn't break through the otherwise empty highways (I'm just venting now), but a stop for gas, and help from a guy there who had a Thomas Guide (thick, handy map-book), and a few more misadventures getting lost, and I found it. The road was a "pl." (place), meaning it was only about 3 blocks long, so if you missed one of about 3 cross streets, you'd never find it, as I proved, over and over and over again…

Anyway, I finally found it, blood pressure at max levels by this point, and rolling down the alleyway, several movie references popped into my head, like "That's no logs… that's a battlestation!" (Star Wars) and "We're gonna need a bigger truck" (Jaws). He had said they were 2-3 feet long, and as much as 2' in diameter. Usually these ads greatly exaggerate. I'm reminded of one lady who stated she had logs that were 48" in diameter, which would make them about the size of the plastic versions you sit in on log flume rides :) They looked, based on the bricks they were standing on in the picture to be more like 16". Turns out she meant centimeters, which put them at around 16"-18". This is common in LA. People don't know trees here, nor how to judge their sizes. I think I found an exception. I actually had a sinking feeling overriding the euphoria of finding them. These were absolutely huge, by my standards. If you own a sawmill, they weren't all that big, but if you've been collecting branches for a year like me, it was an eye opener. They were all leaning up against the fence. Some were standing more than waist-high.

I got out and shut the truck door, and dogs erupted in barking all around me. It was about 2:45AM - first chance I had to get up there, plus all that driving/being lost time - and my "SHHH!"s didn't help at all. These were all big dogs, like Dobermans, and bulldogs - junkyard dog types. Climbing up into my truck, I could see over the fences, and both sides seemed like junkyards, full of rusty old trucks, boats, scrap metal, and weeds as tall as me. But this was a neighborhood, and I felt bad that the final obstacle had to be sprung on its sleeping inhabitants as well as me. They barked full volume the entire 20 minutes I was there - about 5 dogs, 3 on one side, 2 on the other, behind their fences. Oh, and I lied. There was one more obstacle. Leaning a particularly large log out of the way, I found the one thing I'd been most worried about, and why I was glad I brought my headband lamp - a black widow spider. It was the biggest I've ever seen, with a 1/2"-5/8" body. With the legs, it was over an inch. I didn't know they got nearly that big, but it was definitely a BWS. Black, patent-leather body, and large, ominous, fire-engine red hourglass. I don't know if the big ones are worse than the little ones, but I decided to leave that log - one of the ones I couldn't lift anyway - and in the morning I'm going to call the guy and warn him.

Lifting the logs was a major chore. These have been sitting out for 2 years, according to his notes, and one was hollowed out pretty well, so they were lighter than fresh stuff. I wouldn't have been able to lift them when they were wet. As it was, there were 4 or 5 I simply could not lift, and that's saying something. I'm 6', 250lbs, and just a few years ago I was maxing around 320lbs on bench, and a little over 800lbs squats. I've lost quite a bit of that since then, as I stopped working out in late '04, but the guy wasn't kidding in his note when he said "You'll need 2 people and a trailer." All of my friends are skinny computer nerds, and they wouldn't have been able to pick up any of these ;) I just barely could pick up the ones I did, and I had to try a few times with some, comically getting to within an inch of the tailgate, and then slowly sinking back down, veins bulging in my neck and forehead. All the tendons in my wrists, fingers, and elbows - and my biceps - are telling me right now that I'm going to be locked up tomorrow like an NFL player the morning after a game. The last 5 that I couldn't budge from the ground wouldn't have fit in the bed with the rest of the logs anyway, unless I put them unsafely on top of the other logs, but I didn't want to take the 405 and 101 again, with all their hills and swerving turns with anything not on the bed floor - not at this size.

They all featured significant checking, as I've come to expect from eucalyptus, but I think there's a ton of useful stuff in there. I managed to tile the floor with them like a game of Tetris, really packing in all that I could. The scraping sounds as I slid them on the bed liner sent the dogs into screaming wails. The guy wrote "They're in the alley, so you can pick them up any time," but he didn't mention I'd be waking the town if I came by late. I had to push the last one up on its corner so I could shut the tailgate, and then I was off. The truck, normally a bit bouncy on the textured, cracked highways out here rode like a dream on the way back. All that weight in the back dampened all movements to a smooth glide. It was like being in a luxury sedan. My big, bouncing belly appreciated it :)

I'm leaving the logs in there when I go to work in the morning. I can show them off to my coworkers, which will mask the real reason, which is that I need some time to heal up before I go at them again. And of course, my 16" Homelite electric chainsaw is going to be severely inadequate, both in power, and in length. I probably need something 3 foot long, and gas powered. I think I'm going to have a go at just taking my time, chipping away at them when I can, manually. Of course, now I need an old-timey whip saw ;) Once I thin them down by cutting off their edges, I can slab the remainder with the chainsaw. I'd like to free some bowl blanks, too. Regardless, hooray for lots more to play with!

I'll post some pics soon.

I also restacked all the juniper branches today so the gardeners could get into the back yard, folded up the tarp, which is exactly the size of my yard, and laid it over them, cleaned out a ton of branch piles, cutting up pieces I could use, throwing the rest in the green waste recycling bin, swept and raked things, cut and routed some panels for my next project - a simple shelving unit for an open spot on the garage wall - wired a switch-operated outlet combo box, and redid some lighting for another project, which I will also post about pretty soon. This was a great day, all-in-all, and it's after 5:30AM, and I have work today. TGIF. I'm going to go sleep the sleep of the dead. Goodnight.
 
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#3 ·
What!!! You didn't want to take the 101 with a load of logs! Where is you sense of adventure? Why, I'll bet you could sell tickets for that ride- especially on the down side :^)

Nice score, Gary!
 
#5 ·
Gary - thanks! I wish you were closer, too :)

lew - seriously! Coming down the hills felt a little harrowing. I had to turn a bit earlier than usual into them.

Scott - me too! Thankfully, Canoga Hills is a pretty upscale area, but with all that dog barking at 3AM, I might have shot me after 20 minutes, too.
 
#6 ·
Gary nice catch. I hope that there is some useful wood in there or you spend a lot of effort for firewood.
 
#7 ·
large Eucalyptus log pics - I wasn't kidding when I said big!

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 several hundred stabilized pen blanks :)



Here's one from a branched section of the tree:



And here are my feet for some scale. Them's some big logs. My biceps are just now returning to normal :)



I will be moving these around the back of the house soon, and by soon, I mean when I'm finished healing up from loading them into the truck in the first place.
 
#15 ·
When it rains... found some more logs ON MY BLOCK!

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 large, unruly bits for me.



I'm pretty sure it's a Ficus, and in this area, it's probably a Ficus microcarpa 'Nitida' (microcarpa meaning "small fruit") known commonly as the Indian Laurel Fig, AKA Cuban Laurel, AKA Green Island Fig, AKA Chinese Banyan, and it's also had many taxonomic renamings over the years, adding lots of confusion to identifying it. The other contender was the Benjamin Fig, or Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina), the plant people across America have in pots in their offices. However, looking that up more closely, the leaves have long, pointy, acuminate tips. The leaves on my haul tonight were shorter, stubbier, and rounded, just like those on the F. m. nitida closeups I've tracked down online. There's a good comparison here (read the description above the photo). Mine are just like those on the right in that shot - F. microcarpa.

The vertical log right of center in this shot was the biggest piece, with a diameter ranging from 13" to 14".



The one with the round face a bit high and left of center here is a bit over 8" in diameter.



This has the look of Ficus trunks in my area:



Finally, the little one, with some spindly branchy bits, and some more leaves to help me identify it as most likely the Ficus microcarpa.



Now I can practice some resawing techniques on something a bit less pretty than the eucalyptus will likely be. I was disappointed when the telephone line repairmen cut free and spirited away a 4" diameter branch from the neighbor's fig trees that was overhanging the space behind my lot, tempting me this past year. I was eventually going to cut it off to keep it from destroying my garage, and as a bonus I'd have a new species to machine that I'd not experienced yet. I was crestfallen when I came home from work to find that branch - and the linemen - gone. "Where and when am I ever going to find Ficus to play with now?" I wondered. I just got my answer. These things seem to go in waves.

I've read that fig tree wood is pretty weak, and decays rapidly, but I'm a major proponent of researching, then trying things out anyway. There's just nothing like empirical evidence. I've surprised myself sometimes, learned a lot more than if I'd simply said "oh well nevermind then", and it's fun, regardless.
 
#16 ·
fun is what it's all about - and as you mentioned -it'll give you plenty of experience and training resawing without worrying about that $500 board… urban harvesting - what a great concept. do you have a place to let resaws boards dry properly?
 
#18 ·
quick and dirty homemade dolly (for moving huge logs)

If you recall the enormous gum tree logs I rescued recently, you might have wondered how I was going to move them all. Crushing manly strength alone? Nah, I was still pretty shot after lifting them into the truck in the first place. I slapped together a dolly out of scrap 2×4s (left over from the log rack shelves) with deck screws and some pocket holes (and screws), and a pair of rubber wheels and matching axle bolts that I ended up not needing for another project about a month back.





It was the work of about 20 minutes, plus another 15 trying to find the other wheel (next to the clothes dryer, of course!), and about 30 minutes of talking to mom on the phone after calling to see if she saw it while cleaning up my place on her yearly visit recently (she's too good to me, but had no idea where a wheel might be :)



I added a cross bar after trying to move the first log, because at about 2' wide, some logs would fall through:



The one thing I'd change is the wheel placements. I made it so they would be flush with the bottom, so it would sit flat when tipped forward. Tipping it back was supposed to allow it to roll on the now bottomed-out wheels, but the lumpiness of the grass and cement around my house meant I was too often dragging it on the back of the bottom 2×4. I flipped it over and ran a sharp chisel along that edge to relieve it substantially, and it got better, but I still wish I'd swapped the location of the bottom frame and wheels. Wheel bolts should have been on the bottom, frame floor just above them.

Other than that, it performed quite admirably, not even bending under the weight of the huge gum logs. It saved me at the very least $30, though I imagine some day I'll just cave and get a proper dolly anyway.

Here's a time-lapse video of moving the euc logs a few days after I found them. As the sun sets, the lights in my log racks - recently blogged about - light the way.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

The video is hosted by flickr. I'd just do that with everything, keeping the videos with their related photos, not to mention it being negligibly easier to grab embed codes from Flickr. However, they have a cap of 90 seconds. A lot of my videos run over that, so YouTube must remain an option.

Now I'm thinking of just undoing the screws, moving the wheels and frames where I want them, making some 'tailgate ramps' (Do they have a name - the 2x~6 deals that gardeners use to load and unload lawnmowers and tractors?), and seeing if I can go grab the rest of those even bigger logs, if they aren't gone yet.
 
#19 ·
Gary, your ingenuity and resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me. The dolly looks pretty solid and constructing it out of re-purposed material is a great cost saving idea. I guess you could use a few more logs in there but, at the rate you are going, it won't take long to fill up the rack. Then it is either build another or start cranking out projects to make some room in there for more wood.
 
#25 ·
more Ficus microcarpa

Remember that haul last week of fig logs? I used the new dolly to move them around back:



Here's the load by the light of day:



Exactly one week later, running home on my lunch break, I found ANOTHER PILE of them in the same spot, from the same tree likely. Of course, I had to back up, pull over, and load those in, too :)





Pretty big!



This rooty section had wood chunks that didn't match. I think they're Douglas fir, from a fence or garden something-or-other, which the fig tree wrapped around and tore up.



I remembered to get some leaf shots this time. The stubby tips match with F. microcarpa. F. benjamina - the common houseplant fig everyone in the US seems to have somewhere - has a longer, pointier tip. Most of the other figs I've looked up have vastly different leaves than either of these. For example, these from the common fig. Note the edible figs. Ficus microcarpa gets little berry-like fruits which are either not edible, no good to eat, or just not worth it. "Microcarpa" means "small fruit."



Everyone ready for another Benny Hill time-lapse log-moving video? Great! Here I'm dragging load #2 back to the patio, which I just swept off and cleared a bit for the fig logs, and adding load #1 from last week to it. Glad to have them up on the cement, where I don't need to worry too much about killing grass, or bugs pouring into the logs from the soil. All of this log hauling work is starting to build up the muscles.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

And there's the pile, with me for some scale (6' tall).



Of course, they're still monumentally dwarfed by those Eucalyptus logs. I need to get those up on the patio soon, too.



I feel a bit like I should be living, say, in Montana, and not the 'burbs of Los Angeles.
 
#26 ·
You must have smooth ground for those small wheels :)) You have me all enthoused now. I'm working on some maple, cherry and maybe some plum. Geez, that soulnds liuke a lot of work ;-(( Looks like yio uhave a pretty good system worked out.
 
#31 ·
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 minutes late, but did a U-turn, and loaded them up, getting pretty dirty and sweaty in the process.



These are some very large pieces.



I got some more rooty sections:



It's incredible how heavy these things were.

On the way home that night, happy with the score, THEY HAD PUT OUT MORE. Knock it off already! You know I'm a hoarder :) Here's a shot of where I've been finding these things. The Bass sign was laying on them, but I didn't want it, and carefully placed it aside.





Now that's a load.



Their place is one of the prettiest in the area. Mine is a simple little box built in the early '20s, and barely updated since. What's funny is that the lots are all the same size in the entire large neighborhood, meaning that people with large houses like this have very little in the way of yards. I think this one has a mostly-enclosed courtyard, though, which is pretty awesome.



So here's the final 3rd and 4th hauls all together after work today:



And here I am (6ft. tall) for some scale:



Hand scale against the largest one:



I made another time-lapse of the unloading, this time at the truck. If I get another load, I'll have to attach my camera to the dolly itself, and film the journeys of the logs. Then the set will be complete.



The best part of that time lapse is going back through it to grab the 12 frames wherein I've just removed another log. Setting them up to ping-pong back and forth in a GIF image, you can see the truck raise up and down on the suspension care of the tremendous weight of the logs:



Here's the full pile on my back patio. This is all 4 loads stacked into an impenetrable wall:



From a distance, patio in view here:



I had to shove things to the other side a bit and sweep out the left half for the new fig logs. I definitely need to start cutting some things up, stacking and stickering them on the log racks, and making a bunch of green wood turnings to rid myself of some stock, if the wood can handle it. This is a really great opportunity - if the wood is of any use - to enable me to try out everything: stains, dyes, varnishes, wipe vs. brush, layerings, BLO, thinned topcoats, and the list goes on and on. I love having a lot of material against which to test everything, as it removes one of the variables by keeping the testing ground the same each time.



Here's me for some scale again. It's time to put this whole tree back together!



But for now I'm done. And it's naptime. Goodnight.

 
#50 ·
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 right up into the bed, but no one sells them around here, and I didn't have time to wait for shipping. I went with nothing - no gloves, hand truck, head lamp… just me and the truck this time, so I raced a bit to beat the sunset. It's really dark in that alleyway, and there was that huge black widow spider on the logs last time. I wanted to be able to see well.

Here's what awaited my return:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3634019792_8b6d7db400.jpg?v=0" title="huge Eucalyptus logs by
fence" alt="huge Eucalyptus logs by
fence


You get a sense of how big they are when you realize that's a full-size doorway to their right. This was one of the pieces there last time:



It's hard to tell how big it is, so here's my shoe for scale:



I was barely able to budge it, let alone lift it into my truck, so there it stayed. I'm sure it's still there. Here are some smaller pieces at the other end of the row:



That round one on the right with the rags stuck to it - that exists at the absolute limit of my being able to move something. Anything even a pound heavier than that is beyond me. Here's just after I hoisted it into the truck:



That was a heck of an ordeal getting it in there. If you're interested in the short battle-tale, click the image above and read about it at flickr. I'm too traumatized to repeat it.

I mentioned that it was kind of a junkyard of a home, so I snagged a picture this time. I wasn't kidding! But who am I to judge? My place is all logs and branches now :)



For 3 days this is what went on in the back of my truck as I drove around the neighborhoods of West LA, until I could find time and motivation to unload them finally. Every time they slid a little too hard, I'd feel a jolt in the truck. I'd made sure to avoid any head-on collisions.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

Here's the haul at home by daylight, awaiting the final unloading:









And here's my favorite part of the haul - the first time I've picked up any bruises since childhood!



I take some pretty hard bumps every now and then, but I simply don't bruise. I can never prove I'm hurt to anyone :) I was surprised when I found these, and believe it or not, pleased. Now I know I'm definitely human, and can go back to being extremely cautious around my tools.

On the drive home the night before, soaked in the sweat of lifting the largest log, I guessed that it must be 2' in diameter, and 16" tall. I was pretty much dead on. Go me!

16" tall:


An average of 24" diameter (this direction is 25.5"):

Here's the big unloading. I particularly love the shockwaves picked up by the camera whenever the logs hit the ground:



Oh, and I mentioned in a prior post that I should next attach the camera to the dolly for a dolly's-eye view of how it works. It's more boring and seizure-inducing than I hoped, but here it is anyway.





Even though the dolly helps a lot, it was a really hot day, and they're still a lot of work to maneuver around. I was spent.



I'm currently considering an Alaskan Mill to slab some of these. They're pretty cheap.





 
#66 ·
Largest Eucalyptus log - I knew it was over 200lbs!

In a comment by Topamax in this post he made some assumptions, and ran some numbers, and got 188lbs for the largest Eucalyptus log I managed to lift into the truck and bring home from Canoga Hills. I really felt it was over 200lbs, so today I set this up:



It's just some scrap weathered pine stacked up into a makeshift ramp to my bathroom scale out on the patio, with some 2×4s on the scale to keep the log from pressing its central buttons, or marking up its face. The 2×4s also made a platform into which the log would sit, I hoped.

Here's a video of the weigh-in:

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

That's right, it's a heavyweight champ, clocking in at 231.4lbs! Not bad! No wonder it literally slid me across the pavement when it got rolling on me. I'm no featherweight myself.



In the video I weigh it 2x, and both times it was 231.4lbs, so I'm inclined to believe it. Oh, and if you're wondering if the 2×4s added anything, it sets a tare weight when you press the button, so it zeroed itself to their weight first.
 
#67 ·
Yup, you ain't no light weight :) My first calc I made came in at over 200, I decided it might be a bit dryer, so I modified the #/ ft^3 a bit. Guess I should have left it alone.

This reminds me of a fellow I knew who was moving his shop. It was a welding and auto spring shop. He had a 100# anvil. He hired a high school kid who was probably over 6' and well built. Matt told the kid to load the anvil. He said that on the way back into the shop. As he turned back towards the truck, he was just in time to see the kid set it over the tail gate. Matt told him that tail gates open:)) Gary, I don't know if you remember me making a comment about the tail gate would open right after you got your new truck and had a load of wood in it with some big pieces, but this kid is what made me think of it. There is no doubt about it, you are "Strongest Lumber Jock" on this site!!
 
#71 ·
kiln-dried Douglas fir stickers

As a home hobbyist in a big city, not working as much in BF as in "oh look, a log!" I decided to keep things simple on myself and go with KD DF for stickering my slabs. I have a bunch of really old, really dry stuff, and in fact tried to build some finger-jointed frames for another project I'd like to post about someday, but dropping one only a foot to the ground caused all 4 corners to shatter. It's that dry. I figure that means it'll be fairly inert, though who knows what the moisture in the slabs will reactivate. Only one way to find out!

Here's a video I edited together of how I spit out a bunch of 1"×1"×9" stickers on my band saw. I used the table pin as a stop for the right edge of the fence, which it turns out sets it to about exactly an inch away, and the table edge itself for cross cuts, which is about exactly 9" from the blade. With all of this built into the machine, it's all super repeatable later, with no thought or set up times. That'll encourage me to make more stickers any old time I have a minute, and I'm going to need a lot more,





This is what I've been wanting to avoid. See all the mismatched 2×2s, plywood scraps, poplar pieces, and whatever else I had lying in piles being used here as stickers? The new pile on the front of the saw is the big stack of new, uniform, glue-free, totally dry stickers, ready to go.

Btw, these are European olive (Olea europaea) at back left, Indian laurel fig, AKA Green Bay laurel, AKA Cuban laurel, AKA Chinese banyan (Ficus microcarpa "nitida") in the center, and a little log of Australian cheesewood, AKA Victorian box (Pittosporum undulatum) in the front left. The stickers, of course, are kiln-dried Douglas fir, and maybe some ancient pine.



I watched for screws, and found 1, and staples, and found many in the ends where the price stickers were stapled in, and got all of them out as I went. Here are the crappy, hole-ridden or finger-jointed ends from a bunch on the band saw table, and on the floor behind it.



And here's all the new scrap I made cutting all the 2×2 scraps down to 1×1. As 2×2 in the US really means 1.5×1.5, and the saw kerf is about 1/16", these are all in the 7/16" thick range. Firewood, I'm guessing. Check out my right shoe, only a few hours before it got covered in Anchorseal. Oh, now I've made myself sad again.



This is what I've been wanting to see - my log racks filling up with stacked and stickered lumber. It's even less room than I'd hoped, unfortunately.



I can put about 6 of these setups in one section (of 4 shelves), on one shelf. That means roughly 24 logs per section, with 2 sections currently open, or 48 logs total. The bottom shelf is the tallest, probably good for the thicker logs, and they get smaller going up, so these won't fit on the next shelf up, nor the top one. Not a whole lot of room!



Of course, I won't slab everything. I'm going to be making pen, bottle stopper, dish, bowl, and other size turning blanks. I think I'm going to end up with some tall stacks out on the patio, though I'll need to set up to block the rain, and to guard against earthquakes with something to stabilize them from above. For now, I can slab nearly 50 logs, which is a good start.
 
#72 ·
Gary,

Here in south central PA there are lots of sawers. Everyone I have visited uses 3/4" thick stickers for all of their air drying. Might save you a little room in your new drying shed.

Lew
 
#80 ·
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:

she: It's rotten, though. It fell over from a fungal infection.
me: That's only at the base, and even sections near that may only be spalted, and even prettier because of it.

she: But it won't be structurally sound.
me: Most of it will be, but I won't be using most or any of this wood in structural ways - more for carving and panel work.

she: You carve?
me: Well, not so much, but I turn things on my lathe, etc.

she: I can't cover the costs if you get hurt.
me: I won't expect you to. I'll be careful, and not hold you liable for anything. (I know, hearsay, but still true)

she: Well, what if any of it hits that car?
me: We can have the lady next door move it while I work.

she: Do you think it could hit the house?
me: No, it's too far away, and I'll trim all the small, long limbs with a pole saw first so it has no long reach.

she: Well, I'm afraid it will fall in the street.
me: Again, I'll trim all the small bits that overhang the street first, but if the long branch falls in the street, I'll just drag it back out - it's not too big.

she: What if it falls on a passing car.
me: (looks around at the road which has had no cars for the last 20 minutes) I'll only cut that limb when no cars are on the street.

she: I'm still just too concerned.

Argh! If it had been a grumpy old man more mad at the mess on his lawn than worried about everything else under the sun, I'd already have it all cleared out. Anyway, she did take my numbers, and told me she'd call the moment the city tree guys showed up so I could come ask for the pieces. They were supposed to come by, but I took a work break and drove by at 5:30 - still there. She was leaving for the day tomorrow, and wanted it gone before then, and said she'd call if they didn't show up by 5PM, but at 6:45PM, still no word.

This is a full tree with all kinds of play areas - burls, branches of every kind, a thick trunk (~18"), and even possible spalting (there are mushroom halves sticking out the sides at the bottom) - not close to anything that could get hurt, and literally one block from my house (one street over). I've been itching to try Jacaranda all year, but I may be blocked an overly concerned homeowner.

Wish me luck!

 
#81 ·
Listen for chainsaws, then get yourself over there. Maybe you could sneak over there while she is at work?
Well, I hope you get some of this tree, looks like it may have some interesting grains towards the base.
Good Luck,

Lisa
 
#93 ·
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 had enough. Her gardener told her "Just let that guy cut it. He knows what he's doing" That was kind, if wrong, of him. I'm very green with a chainsaw, but at least it's only a 16" electric with an anti-kickback chain, and I know a little something about gravity, and where things want to fall. I've also read everything I can find on proper use, stance, grip, and methodology of felling, bucking, pruning, and whatever else I could find, and watched dozens of YouTube videos of people using chainsaws, and talking about proper care, usage, and maintenace. That's no substitute for experience, but there's also no experience without just getting out there and taking some risk.

I'm happy to report that after a bit over an hour of trimming, I am uninjured, and I damaged nothing in the area. It is rather hard to tell sometimes what a limb will do, so I did get half a dozen binds, some that I had to fight pretty hard to unstick, but it's all part of experience. I also broke my new $80 limb saw. What a flimsy thing that was. I'm disappointed in Fiskars, and the thin plastic that gave out immediately on about the 4th cut. I'll need to return it tonight.

I wore a hard hat, safety goggles, and tight clothing that wouldn't fall into the saw, kept my eyes on where the cord was, keeping it untangled, with enough slack in case I had to move, and so limbs wouldn't catch it and pull the thing out of my hand. I also kept areas around me clear in case I needed to jump back, or do a dive roll to get out of the way of anything big, but all of my guesses turned out pretty well, and there were no crazy snapbacks, or rollovers. Everything fell basically where and how I wanted. The reading and video watching paid off. Still it's a bit nerve-wracking when you're new, and in someone else's lawn, right out by the road.

Here's what I left behind:



My truck was pretty full, but moreover, I needed to get to work, and coming off a powerful headache and low sleep last night, waking up earlier than usual, and not eating or drinking anything, I got a case of mild heat stroke by the end, and had to sit in the car and wait for the blood to return to my head. I thought I would vomit. I've had that a few times in my life when I've, say, jogged too hard in the hot sun after a long period of non-exercise. It's never fun. I still feel a little weak, but a quick shower before work, and slowly sipping on water all morning is restoring me to normal. Boy am I out of shape!

I couldn't cut through the big stuff with a 16" chainsaw, but I gave it the old college try. I'm considering renting a 2' gas-powered saw just for a few cuts, and will be properly nervous using it if I do so.



I did get a truck bed mostly full of some thick branches, though. They are really heavy for their size. This stuff must be incredibly wet:



After a quick shower, putting the saws away, I headed into work with what I'm calling an "arboreal flush." I'm still feeling pretty beat up here. This sinks it. I'm getting back in shape. I'm tired of being too old at 31 to do things like cutting up a tree and loading a truck once.



At lunch I'm going to drag these out onto my driveway, and head back over to saw up a bunch more of the less-than-3", greater-than-5" pieces in 6' lengths to throw into the back of the truck. I think these will be great for small turnings on the lathe.



Hopefully the tree guys don't show up and haul it all away while I'm at work today! If they do, no big deal. I did get quite a bit of free stuff to play with already.
 
#104 ·
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 dump the logs on my driveway:





With the truck empty, and saws loaded back in, I rushed back over to Camille's (nice that she's one street over). Here I post 2 pics from the previous entries on this tree just for comparison. Here's the tree as I found it:



Here's what I left behind after a bit more than an hour of cutting and loading things this morning:



And here's how I left it after another ~45 minutes of cutting and loading through my lunch break (though I snagged the pic later, on the way home after work):



Chamille was home, and extremely pleased when she came out to see what I'd done. I was glad to repay her a bit with a pretty clean lawn for kindly letting me use her electricity (behind the couch in the living room) for my saw, and for letting me onto her property for a couple of hours of cutting.

I snipped all the sub-2-inch branches with the chainsaw and threw them in a pile by the road, picking up everything but tiny twigs. This gave me great access to get to each branch as I progressed through the limbs, without tripping over piles. It was pleasant, easy work. I also cleared out her Agapanthus bed so she could assess the damage and get her flowers sorted out again. I felt like an urban lumberjack.



No way I was getting through the trunk. If I were a gambling man, I'd lay good money on that thing being over 1000lbs. Note where the caution tape is, and follow the branch stub across the ground to the right. I cut a chunk off the end of that that unrolled is probably 3.5' long, and it had to be 150lbs. It's less than half the diameter of the trunk, which is probably 12' long. That it tapers to a much narrower end matters little in my estimate. That thing would flatten a car.

And here's the second load, back home:



There's a big burl in the front there, by the driver-side cab glass, though Jacaranda being notably uniform and rather texture-free, it might not yield anything but a larger, pre-globular chunk ready to be turned into some uniform, boring bowls. If that's the case, I'm counting on some cool effects with layered dyes. Here's hoping.



I met another neighbor while unloading the second load, and moving it with the first load behind my tarped fence here:



I have a cat who visits me all the time. She's really pretty as cats go, and almost as friendly as a dog, always rushing over to see me, even when I'm throwing huge logs around, meowing loudly to announce her presence. She once sat directly under a log I was sawing, letting dust pile up on her head as I laughed, until I finally coaxed her out of harm's way. I have to strain not to drop anything on her, as she likes to attack the ends of logs I'm carrying, and sniff them as I lower their ends to the ground.

Today, she went behind the gate, and emerged limping badly for reasons unknown. There was nothing behind the gate, no logs fell on her, and a quick check showed no embedded objects. Still, she hopped about on just the front and back left legs, and cried in pain whenever she tried to put that back right foot down. I couldn't take much of it, so I picked her up for the first time, which she calmly allowed, and carried her in the direction whence she always appears. The neighbor there was indeed the owner, and apparently her name is Abby. He thanked me for bringing her home and said he'd get her to the vet. Relief! Hope she's okay. I love her visits.

So here's the larger wood pile, with a sweaty me for some scale:



And opposite that is the smaller log pile, great for smaller turnings:



This piece is deceptively heavy, and I'm putting it close to 150lbs. It was a major hassle to hoist it into the truck bed, and I have a rash of burst blood vessels on my right shoulder to prove it. Check out what it did to my makeshift dolly:



Jacaranda must be mostly water. I think it's time to give in and get a proper furniture dolly for this stuff. This got me by for free for a few months.

Oh, and no worries, I rushed back out in the fading light with my pail of Anchorseal, and a 4" paint brush, which I use exclusively for sealing now, and hit every cross section I could see, applying a thick layer. Many logs were already showing narrow checks around the piths, usually in 2 opposing directions. I don't want to lose more logs to severe checking like I did with some of those European olives.



After sealing these up, I went in and took my 4th shower of the day, and did a full load of dirt and sweat caked laundry :)

Camille said she'd call me if she spotted the tree men working on the large trunk, and if I felt like it at the time, maybe I could swing by and see if they'd section up some of the large pieces and help me hoist them into my truck. Not sure I really need any of it now, except that it might be nice to work with larger bowl and vase pieces that have a much larger, more subtle concentric grain. Too, having these logs for proper bowl work would mean I could quarter them and still probably be larger than the capacity of my 12" Jet lathe.

We'll see… if I've healed up, and have any room left at home.
 
#112 ·
wood gloat: superior grade alder scraps

I can't believe it's been just over 3 weeks already since I picked this stuff up. This year is cruising past me. I saw an ad one morning - only a few minutes old - for a very large pile of scrap wood, mostly superior-grade alder, but with a mix of some other things in there, like plywood, and walnut. I wrestled internally for a bit. Do I really need more wood? The answer, it turned out, was yes. I wrote, mentioned I was a budding woodworker, and would love to find uses for all of it, and he gave me preference over some folks who just wanted to burn it all. He does interior work and signage, and felt a kindred spirit, I suppose. Here's what he posted on craigslist:





The chop saw in there gives a sense of the size of this pile. The deal was "no picking and choosing, just take it all and sort it later." Deal! On my lunch break I headed down there, in El Segundo near LAX. Very close by. One of his workers helped me load up the entire truck bed:





I just had to let the pile sit in the truck after lunch at the office. I worked to sort it out before sunset back at home after work. Here's what I sorted out…

Smaller, mostly straight pieces of alder:





Pieces of alder with bark inclusions:



I'll enjoy finding weird uses for them. I like the look.

Thicker chunks of alder:



Wedge-like cutoffs of alder:



Longer pieces of alder, some with knots and/or bark inclusions:





Side note: the vines behind the trash can above gave me a pleasant surprise recently.

Irregular and glued-up pieces of alder:



All manner of higher-grades of plywood, some glued up thick and/or beveled:



Misc, including Douglas fir, red oak, and many small pieces of walnut:



I think there was a lot more walnut there that I wish I'd gotten, but I could only fit half of the pile, and the walnut was in the other half. We could have fit probably all of it if we stacked it all in neatly, but we had no time, and had to just throw handfuls into the back, wasting a lot of room to airspace. I did get a chunk of walnut 2×4, which I've never seen before.

Taller, thin pieces of alder, and some other woods:



me for some scale:



Everything to the right of the tallest piece is alder. Much else is DF, plywood, or red oak. IIRC, the tall piece is 2 pieces of ply, one junk, one walnut ply, glued together.

Here's all the smaller stuff, larger stuff out of view to the left:



He had mentioned several times in the ad that it was "Superior Alder." I didn't know what that meant, but while looking up alder online, learning that it has an unusually high number of grades in the lumber industry, then looking those up, I stumbled upon Cascade Hardwoods, whose logo matched the "ascade" I saw stamped partly across one of my pieces earlier. Now I knew where they were from, and I really like their site. They have a few other species, like birch, and IIRC maple, but clearly are known for their alder, which is even the title (in the titlebar) of their page when you visit. It just says "Alder" up there.

They have the greatest catalog I've yet seen that diagrams (with drawings) their drying techniques, and moreover, every grade of alder, the symbols they draw on the planks that indicate these grades (over 30 of them), and 5 pictures of full boards, front and back, per grade, in good detail, to show you exactly what you're getting, as well as full details about each grade (percentages clear and whatnot), and standard uses for each grade. So helpful! Download it for free in PDF form in high or low quality at their site. It's over 50 pages long, all of which are surprisingly interesting to flip through. The whole site is fun to explore, and much of the catalog info is there in the left sidebar. Oh, and "Superior" is just one of their grades (actually several with subtypes therein).

I learned a little Spanish sorting this stuff:



As night fell, I found a home for all the plywood on this shelf of my log drying racks:



And for all the smaller bits of alder on the bottom shelf, 2 down from there:



The shelves are nearly full, though with all the turning lately, I'm starting to chip slowly into this pile:



I've thought up lots of uses, but it'll be awhile before I can get to those projects. In the meantime, it was great to experience alder itself. I haven't worked any yet, but it was all covered pretty thickly in alder wood dust, which has such a nostalgic smell. I remember toys in my preschool and kindergarten smelling just like this, as well as things like children's painting easels and paint storage boxes and toy chests. Clearly there was a lot of stuff made from alder back in the day.

Here are the shelves (bottom, and 2 up from that) by the light of day:







I was going to go back for the other half, but I guess he'd already promised a shot to some other folks, and they cleaned the place out before I could return. When I called, he offered me some really beefy work tables (multiple laminated ply on sturdy 2x frames) instead, which I sadly had no room for. The taller stuff I fit in my wood shed, which one of these days I'll get around to documenting as well.

Superior alder is quite light, but pretty strong in feel, like a very high-grade pine (e.g. radiata pine). It has a smooth, pretty look to it, and a pleasing grain. I'll be happy to see it in some projects with some finish on it. I think I'm going to have to plan a few projects that make use of glued-up panels to combine a bunch of these pieces into larger ones to thin things down and regain some shelf space. What's nice is that if I manage to make anything saleable, it'll be 100% profit (minus my time, of course). If I could get a deal going with that guy to let me haul away his scraps a few times a year, maybe kicking him back a little for the opportunity, I could have a nearly 100% profit business model :) Oh, if only I were so ambitious.

Okay, I'm done gloating for now :)
 
#125 ·
Inside Jacaranda

I've done some smaller things in Jacaranda lately, but what does the larger stuff look like inside? I wanted to do some larger bowl work and other things, so I went to one my larger limbs and cut it into some pieces. They're simple, but pretty inside, so I thought I'd share. It's not very common a wood for most woodworkers, I think.

The piece is the large one front and center on top of the pile seen here (and blogged about here):



Here's me sawing it up on my little knocked-together bucking stand. This wood is extremely wet - nearly dripping - and that made it bite into the saw. I had to slather some Anchorseal, which is a paraffin wax-based sealer onto the blade on both sides to help ease the strokes. It seemed to color the wet wood inside purple until it would be all rubbed off by the middle of the log. You can see it in the cross sections as they fall away. The video cuts out a bit short as my camera battery died.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

The ends of the original log were a bit angled and jagged from the chainsaw, so I cut those off into smaller rounds to true-up the main log's ends. I'm hoping to make some end-grain bowls out them, leaving the bark on. I'm curious to see how that works with the one that's folded in on itself. These are already painted up with Anchorseal. I went over them with a second coat later on both sides:



You can see where I started the cut here - it's the purplish side. The Anchorseal (wax) I rubbed on the blade to ease the cuts rubbed the grain inside, turning it purple, until it was all rubbed off by about 1/3rd of the way in.



I stood the logs on end on the band saw and manually fed them through, following by eye a straight-edge line I drew on top of each. I got one good blank, and one with an interesting folded-in section that might be pretty when turned. Anyone have a name for pulled in and grown-around sections of bark like this? I feel I've seen a name somewhere before. Subsumed bark? Subducted inclusions? This log has been resawn in half:



And here's the inside of that log. Most of these were between 8" and 9" in diameter:



The middle seemed a little bit rotten, but not punky. I think that may translate to some interesting patterns in the eventual turning:



Note the fuzzies all over the top middle of this log. This is a very fuzzy wood. My band saw's 4" dust port screen was clogged by the end of this with a tangle of what felt like silk fibers. The 2TPI teeth on my blade shaved long, strong strings that were very limp, like thread:





Some different lighting - note the shine in the bottom left corner. This wood has a silky sheen to it:



I've begun to entirely Anchorseal everything I cut. I'm quite fed up with things checking on me:



There's some nice figure swirling about in this log half:



Again, note the sheen:



All kinds of stuff happening in and on the other half of that log:



And here they are, all sealed up and sitting on my wood storage/drying racks the same night:



These were cut up a week and a half ago. I've made some things out of these since, and I'll have those up soon.
 
#126 ·
Nice photo-blog. I also like the drying rack you have.

Do you normally cut up logs to half and let them sit and if so have you had any problems with cracking or are they sitting for a very short time like this?
 
#139 ·
just showing off a pretty piece of olive wood

This is from the olive haul I got almost a year ago for free from some tree trimmers. Early this month, in the mood for some more resawing, I cut up another of the logs into blanks around the insane amount of checking.

I've probably heard every trick now to keeping wood from splitting - freezing, microwaving, alcohol dipping, Anchorseal, storing in a bag of shavings after turning, filling cracks with coffee grounds or wood dust and thin CA glue - I've tried many of them, and simply nothing keeps olive from cracking all throughout if it wants to, and too much of it wants to. The trimmers also threw every log over an ~8' tall iron fence onto a hard sidewalk when giving it to me - there was no other way to get it over the fence - so that may have also introduced micro-fractures all through the wood. I simply don't know. I just know this stuff splits like a shattered window. Oh, and I even tried cutting a round from a ~6" log and surrounding it with a band clamp tightened as hard as it would go. It bulged into a dome and still split open like Pac Man overnight :(

Anyway… I got a bunch of smaller stuff in the bottle stopper blank range out of this log, but one larger, check-free length was just gorgeous. I thought I'd finally get around to sharing some pics:









I guess there is a tiny check here, but it's superficial:














You can see the rest of the less interesting blanks in this previous entry, or dominating the middle shelf here:



It'll probably be quite awhile before I figure out exactly what I want to turn out of it, and until then it'll be air drying through its Anchorseal up on the shelf, as it has been most of the past month.
 
#150 ·
Cora's Mexican restaurant wood



Cora's, a local Mexican restaurant went out of business recently. On my way back from the bearing shop with the new bits for my planer this past week I noticed a crew tearing the insides out. I stopped in and asked if I could look through their scrap pile for free wood, and as happens pretty much always here in west LA, they looked at me, shrugged their shoulders, and said "sure."



There's wasn't much, and nothing great, but the wood looked old, and I thought it would be charming to build something out of wood salvaged from a local eating establishment that predated my move here:



I managed a small pile. The thin boards under the pile filling the bottom of the left half of the truck are from a cut-up pallet I got from the bearing place:



Some of it was too dry rotten, but most of it was solid and should be great utility wood for me. I have a rather specialized sawing rig I want to build that this should come in very handy for (outdoor thing - I'd rather use old wood than clean, new stuff):



I liked this brand on the end of an old 2×4:



While pulling out onto the side street from there, I noticed the place next door was moving crates of things around. It looked like it was another restaurant receiving a delivery of things like ovens and dishwashers. All the wood was bright, clean-looking pine. It could come in very handy, especially free, even though pine is pretty cheap. I crossed the side street and rolled slowly past the crews of movers and construction guys, sizing up the score, feeling a bit like HBO's Dexter trailing his next victim :)

In the wee small hours of the next morning, up really early for some reason (5AM), I headed over to see if they'd piled it up in the trash. They'd broken up and piled most of it near the trash, and the rest was scattered around. I cleaned up their mess for them:





I set to work the next day with pliers and screwdriver, pulling the 2" staples that were scattered rather liberally through almost all of it at the ends and middle marks. Here's a finished pile (the 2×4s were clean, had 1 natural edge corner each, and were new and heavy):



And here's the pile of staples:



Because I'm mental, I piled them in groups of 10 - about 140 of them :)



I know I'm mental, because an hour of laboriously pulling staples was really enjoyable for me. Maybe I've spent too many years sitting in the dark at computers, but I just love being outside on nice days, seeing and hearing neighbors pass by, and working hard with my hands. It's so relaxing.

I stacked the rest, and will go back another day to pull more staples and get these ready for use:



I'll probably end up cutting the destapled sections out anyway, but maybe not. I might end up jointing and planing the boards and gluing them up into thicker blocks, and the stapled sections can remain in that case.

Speaking of, I sorted out a bunch of the planks the bearing guys gave me from cut up palettes, all about 14"-16" in length, and a mix of 1×4 through 1×6 from about 1/2" to 3/4". I found a bunch of red and white oak, and something that sort of seemed like an oak, but was just a little off. I jointed them and used the newly repaired planer to get them parallel, then glued them into a block, jointed and planed that down, and circular sawed the ends off, then cleaned up a little saw burn on the ends with the belt sander. This is the result:



It's a perfectly squared-up chunk now, nice and heavy. The 4 lighter bands are the ones I'm not sure are oak or not:



I didn't have a reason to do this. I wanted to do something with the planer, and I love big composite blocks:



Any thoughts? It's almost 13.75" long, and slightly less than 3"x4" wide and deep:





The little crack in the middle of the end grain on this side is where I poured in some thin CA glue that leaked all the way out the other side, which I posted about earlier today:



If I can't think of anything to do with it, I can always stick it in my new wood cutoff racks and wait for inspiration:

 
#168 ·
more restaurant remodeling wood

Another restaurant on the same street as the last one is being remodeled. I headed over one night to see if they threw anything good away and they sure had. The tall boards in the middle here were actually piled up on the dumpster (old boards to the right are from the other restaurant, pallet/crate wood to left from yet another!):



There's some nicer grade 3/4" birch ply about 7' long and more than a foot wide - handy for jigs and secondary structures. There was a plank of 1×10 pine about 8' long and clean. There was a good, long 2×4, and a few bits of molding and smaller pine, all long lengths.

There was a mix of smaller boards piled up at the trash that looked to be full 4/4 pine and maybe some alder:







But the real find were these, and they were actually IN the dumpster, with a bunch of gritty construction trash on top of them. I just barely caught a peek of some end grain sticking out. My eyes are really trained to lock onto that stuff now. The world looks gray, save for bright, colorful spots wherever there's wood grain :)



These look to be something like ipe decking boards, clean, solid, dense, and very heavy. They have rounded edges - all 4 - but none of the stuff normal flooring and some decking can have, like the grooves running the length. These will be fantastic sources of good, dark hardwood. Very pretty, all between about 28-32 inches:





Here's the beveled end grain from some of the flat boards - they were all beveled on both sides:





This one's a 2×2 (1.5×1.5), about 3' long:



I had another big find this morning that I'll post about soon. I'm rather excited about it.
 
#185 ·
Chinese elm, finally!

I learned what a Chinese elm is 1 year and 10 days ago, and blogged about it here. A friend told me she had read about a very old one that had fallen on someone's car during high winds the day before. It turned out to be only a 10 minute drive from work, which is where I was reading the email. At lunch I headed over, found the crushed truck on the side of the road, but the tree was already gone. Since then I've seen Chinese elms all over my area, and they are wild looking, beautiful trees. Here are some creating a tree tunnel not far from where I live:



I took these pics on the way home from the bearing place recently, with the new bearings for my planer:



They're very twisty, and almost muscular in appearance. As LumberJock Demowen commented on my first Chinese elm post way back when, and as I've been saying ever since, they look like something out of Dr. Seuss' imagination. I've stated in the past my interest in trying out every wood I possibly can, from the junk to the treasures. Chinese elm is used by people occasionally, especially in turnings, and it's by all accounts a good wood. That elevated it above total junk, like ficus, to something I've been really interested to try out for a year now. I've even recently complained in a comment to trifern's Elm turning (I'm the last comment on the page currently) that I never see Chinese elm on offer or falling down by itself anywhere, after a year of looking.

Then, very early this morning - like 4:30AM early - I saw this post on craigslist:



It only mentioned "a tree," but I'd know that bark anywhere now, gray peeling to reveal orange-brown beneath. It was Chinese elm. It was also posted the previous afternoon, and it was a good 30 or so miles and 3 highways (the 401, the 10, and the 5) away. Was it even worth the big round trip? Would it still be there? The firewood crowd strikes hard and fast. Maybe the apparent size of these things would slow their pyro-fueled advance some.

I decided to be impulsive, printed out a google map, and jumped in the truck. It turned out I was a bit too impulsive, and left before properly considering what I might need, such as gloves, junkier clothing, my hand truck, and those ramps I built, and a towel to dry myself off and clean myself up with when I was done. In truth, I thought of them all, but thought "Meh, I'll be fine." Famous last words… I was nearly run off the highways the whole way there by the aggressive, early-bird types who populate the pre-sunrise roads (where's the fire, people!?), but I found the place without trouble, and on the grass strip behind a long row of parked cars, they sat waiting for me:



It's been awhile since those huge eucalyptus logs, so I forgot exactly how heavy green wood can be. I always have that feeling that I can just push a little more, and I'll get it. It's just a log. After almost throwing up in my mouth, I realized this one just wasn't coming home with me. Sometimes you really just can't push any more:



That's okay, though. It was cut from one side to the pith, with a wedge driven into it. It looks like someone gave up trying to split it in half. I'd just go for the smaller, unspoiled ones. At some point I realized I could roll Old Unliftable over near the curb/driveway corner and roll logs up onto it with less effort than lifting them entirely and carrying them. Then I was able to use the curvature of the road - built in for rain runoff, as evidenced by where the moisture was pooling - to back the tailgate right up to the stump. Normally my tailgate is way up by my waist, but here it was dipped down right to the top of the stump. Perfect! I just tipped this log onto the tailgate and slid it home - substantially easier:



I left probably 1/3rd of the logs behind, including the few very largest ones. I had no intentions of making nor using huge slabs of this, though, and the logs I got will be ripped and crosscut into a number of large turning blanks, big enough to give my 12"x20" Jet lathe a healthy workout. I'm hoping in a month or three to just start churning out turnings, getting better and better as I make salable items all the while. In the meantime, I've much else in the way, such as jury duty, a diet (this is much more work than it sounds :), a friend shipping his car to me from Texas to watch for him, taxes, moving boxes of stuff out of the old office (they're moving to a much smaller place soon), and of course the ever-present job hunt. I'm working currently on materials such as a demo reel to aid me in that effort. After much of this has subsided, I hope to be back out in the shop a lot more, making as much as time permits.

Anyway, here's the full haul, ready to pull out around 5:30AM or so, only about a half hour after I left home, and still well before sunrise. I was leaking sweat like a water fountain, and missing that towel I'd neglected to bring. Did the Hitchhiker's Guide teach me nothing? At any rate, the family will wake to find their log pile shrunk considerably since the previous night. The log ninja strikes again!



I hadn't emptied the haul from the restaurant, so I had to pile those up against the edge first to make room. I think this is the biggest log of the lot. Pretty big! I had visions of this guy in my head seeing this particular log. They're probably almost equal in weight, as the euc was a lot more dried out than this brand new, soaking wet elm log. I'd put the elm around 200lbs, a little less than the euc - the reigning champ of large logs I've dragged home.



I was really glad that it was pretty much all trunk pieces from a fairly vertical tree. Too often all I find are branch pieces with their inherent stresses from having grown horizontally, or at some angle off of vertical. So much of my wood has a pith way over by one side, evidence of reactionary growth. Wood changes to support such affected structures. In angiosperms (flowering plants, e.g. broadleaf/deciduous trees), reaction wood is called tension wood, and it forms above the branch, pulling up the wood beneath it like a rope stretched taut. In conifers, reaction wood is called compression wood, and it occurs below the wood, and acts to push up the wood above it, like a buttress. Each grouping has evolved to solve the issue of outside stresses in different ways.

That said, reaction wood is structurally, and even chemically different than the rest of the wood. Wood with a mix of regular and reaction structures loves to warp and bend, and will continue to do so as moisture levels change, because each kind of structure reacts differently to moisture levels. Reaction wood isn't only in branches, either. Trees growing on a slant (e.g. many Chinese elms I've seen - they grow every which way) will show it in one side of the main trunk, and even trees that are buffeted by winds or snows primarily from one direction, or have branches trimmed on one side only to protect a nearby building, and are thus lopsided will grow to brace against the asymmetrical force.

But enough of that. More pics!









This is one of the few small ones:



I love these amateur buckings. The guiding principal seems to be 'just keep hacking with the chainsaw until it comes apart':



Some interesting bark:



It's funny what relative scales do to your perception. This piece was just holding the front of the "FREE WOOD" sign against the large, unliftable piece. I almost left it there, before realizing it was actually a very large piece of wood, and would have to be trimmed down to fit on my lathe, yet is a really great size for making a large bowl on said lathe. I threw it in the truck:



Another large piece, showing some interesting curvy lines in the sapwood. There's a dry, powdery coating on all the logs from the chainsaw, perhaps evidence that this wood will turn more into powder than large chips? I can't say yet. It'll be interesting to see how it handles, though. The leaves are more evidence of elm…ness.



I had to get another dominance shot, reminiscent of this one from this post on some large eucalyptus logs:



And of course, I did not make it out entirely unscathed. Here's a mildly scratched up arm, reminiscent of this bruising from this post:



I went in, cleaned up, and took a long break. Later in the day I went back out and noticed these things were checking fast in the windy afternoon air!









I went out as the sun was setting, and in the dark with a headlamp strapped to my head, Anchorsealed all of the faces I could get to. It was too late at night, and I was too tired to try flipping them, or unloading the whole truck and finding somewhere to put these, but the bottoms should check more slowly, as the moisture is more trapped. Not ideal, but what can you do?

Then, naturally, it started raining. It's rained so much more in LA this year than I've ever experienced in my 7 years here. I can't be bothered to try to tarp my truck after midnight, so I'll survey things tomorrow and probably reapply some anchorseal. Mostly, I'd just like to get these cut into blanks very soon and sealed well, despite all else that's going on. The back of the truck was a puddle of Anchorseal, and the truck is dripping a white trail of wax behind it, running down the dirt driveway. This LumberJocking is tough business.

But hey, I have a bunch of Chinese elm now! My wishes have been granted :)
 
#201 ·
Okay, too much wood now...

I'd love to get these, but conifers don't really call to me like the angiosperms. The wood is usually soft and sappy, and I grew up surrounded by pine. It's what everything decorative and utilitarian was made from, so I'm a little burned out on it.

Now these, they call to me through sheer size. I think most of that is 3' diameter or better. I'd love to have a nice portable band mill and a flatbed, and an MS 880 STIHL Magnum™ Chain Saw with a 59 inch guide bar. I'd cut some rounds for circular table tops, then slab the rest for rectangular table tops, all natural edge wherever the bark wasn't screwed up, with decoratively rounded edging wherever it was. Any thoughts as to how many table tops could be made out of these 3 chunks, and what they might run if all sold? Obviously grain and other things will vary the price, but I'd love to hear any ballpark guesses.
 
#206 ·
Eucalyptus branch from Venice Blvd in west LA

I had a meeting today with a friend who does pet portraits here in LA. He left the film effects business last year to focus on his two passions: pets, and photography. It's working out for him. He did portraits of all of Paris Hilton's dogs last year. He has a bunch of freelance work for me - website stuff - which will be great to tide me over as I continue to pursue full time employment again. In other financial news, looks like I'm getting a tax refund to the tune of $8 more than a month's rent. Keep in mind that rent in LA is astronomical. I could buy almost 5 of my RIDGID table saws for a month of my rent. Little by little I'm stumbling into just enough to squeak by :)

Andy bought me lunch at a [for me] fancy place in Culver City (the tiny parking garage had 2 Maseratis and an Aston Martin), showed me his small, but feature-rich studio, talked shop and freelance with me for a couple of hours, and explained to me again how he'd love for me to be on his team full time one of these days. He wants someone on call to build all manner of props for photoshoots, and help build up and repair the studio as needs be. Sounds like fun, though I don't know if it would actually pay the bills, and I can't imagine he would have a benefits package for me (he has one part-time assistant currently). He isn't afraid to spend money, though. For the first few assignments, all identical, I quoted a price per that I thought was fair to high, and he said he had been thinking about 1.5x that, and added "Why don't we just go with my price." Sure!

But enough of that, because then I drove home, right past this big limb:



I only had a quick glance as I rushed by in traffic, and mistakenly thought it was bottlebrush. At 10:30PM, I headed back and found a wide apartment complex driveway to park in on Venice Blvd., which was otherwise completely tiled with cars on both sides. During a lull in the 3-lanes-each-way of traffic, I hurried up onto the raised median feeling a bit like I was doing theater-in-the-round for the cars that were soon rushing by me again 5' to either side.

I found it was actually some kind of Eucalyptus, forever unidentifiable to me with its >730 species. This was one of the kinds with very bendy limbs that somewhat easily snap clean away, so I spent a while cleaning off more than 50 1"-2" branches anywhere from 4' to 6'+ long, making 2 neat piles for the city workers, whenever they manage to show up again. What you see in the picture is just the main sections, but it was basically a dense shrub when I found it. At some point, a lady brought her dog out onto her fenced-in front yard, right next to the driveway where I'd parked, and watched me for a good 10 minutes as I worked.

I was just waiting to hear a voice over an electronic megaphone asking me what I was doing, but no cops showed up. I made sure not to accidentally roll any branch bits out into traffic. Soon it was cleaned up and able to fit in my truck, and with another large lapse in traffic, I walked it back across the street and made off with the treasure. I probably don't really need it ;) At its largest, it's about 8" in diameter. Not a huge log by the standards of this past year of hunting, but it's always fun to find new booty to try out.

I might head back some time tomorrow to grab some shots of the tree itself, its leaves, bark, seed pods, and anything else it has to help me one day identify it. I used to not want to make things out of woods I hadn't ID'd, but now I'm thinking that saying a piece is made of "some kind of Eucalyptus," or the more scientific "Eucalyptus spp." is fine for now, especially if I have good photographic documentation of the various tree parts so I can later sate my curiosity by tracking down the species. I can be a bit particular in that way.
 
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