LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner
15K views 55 replies 28 participants last post by  Ecocandle 
#1 ·
Why I needed a new wood rack

About 3 weeks ago my wife & I went to an estate sale. This was no an auction but a 3 day sale where all items are priced. we were thee on the 2nd day went some items had started to be reduced. The owner had done some woodwork. I went to the barn where all the woodworking tools were, together with tools he used on his farm. Up against on wall were 3 boards that I could not identify.

Photobucket

The guy who was handling that part of the sale, who also does a bit with wood told me that they were butternut and that the would sell for $25.00 for the 3. These boards are over 1 ft wide and 17 ft long.
He also pointed out the lumber stacked above the joists the width of the barn. (aprox 30 feet.

Photobucket

hes listed the various types starting with cherry on the far right and the red and white oak beach, popular and on and on. He told me that it had been priced at $200.00 the day before, but had been reduced to $1500.00 and that it had been guesstimated at between 3500 and 4000 board feet. He suggested, off the record, that because of the large quantity of 8/4, 10/4 and larger pieces that it probably more. The wood had been in the loft for between 15 and 18 years and if I was seriously interested he would go into the house and attempt to get a rock bottom price. to cut the story short I got every thing in the loft and up against the wall. I later figured that at 3800 board feet I had paid 31&1/2 cents a board ft. (the picture only shows half of the loft)
 
See less See more
2
#5 ·
I am torn as to how to respond. The nice guy in me wants to congratulate you on a totally sweet score, the jealous part of me wants to make obscene gestures at the screen…

I'm gonna go for the nice guy approach….

Nice score!

If you need more storage space I'll send you my address. I'll make room…
 
#8 ·
Let me add my congratulations to those already posted. I am glad that 3800 board feet of lumber was purchased by a guy who knows what to do with it, and not just cut up for firewood.

I looked at your woodshop. I see that you have plenty of room to store your new cache of wood.

Be careful when you load and unload.

Oh, and by the way, haven't you heard, ... someone once said that "cleanliness is next to godliness." (Insert smiley face.)

Have fun with your wood in the coming months.
 
#18 ·
Starting to get some of it home

I guess a little background is in order. I do have a 16 ft open trailer. I have ruptured tendons in both biceps. After a long history of back problems I underwent surgery to remove bone from each of my 5 lumbar vertebra. In a nutshell I am lifting impaired. If anyones interested I'll post a picture of the foot long scar down my lower back (presuming I can convince my wife to take the picture, she funny that way)

The afternoon of the purchase I hooked up the trailer and returned to the sale where we loaded Just the wood leaning against the wall. There was considerable good wood behind the butternut and quite a bit of things like used stakes that had been used to stake berry bushes. Some of this type of wood has in fact been converted into kindling On the following day I returned and down loaded some of the wood from the area above the rafters. I also picked up a small chest freezer that my wife had bought for one of my daughters..
After returning Home and parking the trailer in the barn, nee wood shop.I did not lift anything for the next 10-12 days.

Photobucket

I have a man who works for/with me by the hour on an as needed basis, usually 2hours, twice a month, generally cleaning the horse stalls.Mike can do the hard physical work that I can no longer do and is happy no matter how much or how little work that there is. After about 2 weeks after the above, I had Mike come by and after he cleaned the the horse stall He and I together unloaded the trailer. I explained that I had a job but would need 2 people. He related that he could get his brother to work with him as long as I could give them 2-3 days notice.
 
#22 ·
Starting to get some of the haul home.

I picked up Mike and his brother Chad and met with the son(executor) who opened the barn for us. The trailer backed in to the area where the wood was directly overhead.Starting at the far right where most of the cherry was Mike handed the wood, one board at a time to his brother to be stacked on the trailer. I made like a big shot, I supervised. Since the cherry came down first it was stacked to one side of the trailer.With some careful loading and several strong straps we managed to load about 1/2 of the wood. The trailer was lowered somewhat by the weight. (the trailer is rated to handle a load of 7000 pounds.) when we returned to my barn/woodshop they unloaded all the wood, keeping it separated.

CHERRY

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

WOOD INSPECTOR

Photobucket

There are a couple of other piles not shown That together probable have as much wood as the pile of cherry but are somewhat mixed. With most of this wood Its going to take planing to identify each board.

To answer some of the question That have been mentioned. Scrappy, The first project will to be trim the board to remove checking where it exists. Reduce some of the longer board to more manageable lengths, I can't really think of any projects that will require 16-17 foot lengths. I'am not going to undertake to do any resawing at this time but want to plane one side to better identify each type so that they can be placed in the proper location. When this has been accomplished I can then think about getting the other half of the wood and doing the same thing. For those who mare care the pile of cherry is about 15 ft long 6-7 ft wide and 3 ft high.
 
#34 ·
using some of the load.

I'm not certain but what this should be separate but any way… Before I joined us I thought that workbenches, real workbenches were limited to professional cabinet makes, magazine editors, and hand tool advocates. Having now been exposed to a much wider school of thought I have come to realize that this is not the case and that I too was in need of something of this nature. ( I got tired of moving everything off the table saw every time I needed to make a cut.) I 've spent several weeks reading and looking at benches and came to realize that most benches are made to suit the individual that makes them. I also realized that any bench that I made had to fit me and allow for my limitations
1. It would have to be higher than usual so that I could stand upright when using it.
2. Because of our pending move it would have to be able to be disassembled
3. At my age its probably going to be a one time deal
4. I'll probably break some of the 'rules'
5. I want it to be some of my best work, since your bench does your bragging for you.
6. Since I' ve been blessed with all this wood I want to take advantage.of the differences and show off some of the beauty and contrast. THEREFORE this bench is going to be 40 +/- inches high. The base will be built first. Building the top and then putting it on saw horses will not give me a place to work Bending over something at that height wood limit my work to about 15 minutes every 3rd or 4th day the rest of the time being spent recovering. So with every thing more or less planed (in my head) I moved on with the certainty of the poorly informed.
I had some cherry 4+ by 4+ that I felt were about the right size and sturdiness for legs. Of course a little lay out and sawing was indicated.
rt legs

ANDrt legs lower cuts

The left legs, of course look very similar, but have been assembled

left leg assembly
AND

freestanding

Other materials have beet cut and are awaiting a slight increase in the temperture to continue with the rough assembly. ( its now somewhere below 0. F) Bolts are 1/2 in X 6in carriage bolts with large flat washers and lock washers
 
#42 ·
The base comes together

I probably should have updated this about a week ago but the best laid plans of mice….etc . Drilling 5/8 holes through 1 in of white oak 3 in. cherry and an additional 1 in. of red oak is not something that you can whip out in 45 seconds. You are constantly removing the bit to clear the hole of the waste and there are many holes in this base.

end constrution

This assembly is still quite rough and there will be a lot of sanding and planning once its all together.

rough base

As the above picture shows the back lower stretcher has yet to be put in place

Since the above pictures were taken he remaining assembly has taken place and today I was able to put the tail vise in place. The type of vise is something I saw on the net, possibly here or in a magazine. It certainly will provide every thing that I am apt to need.

Photobucket

tail vice

tomorrow. install the small face vive and then start the afore mentioned sanding and planning
 
#49 ·
Vises & and 1/3 top and pop the grain

I recently read a short article in one of the current woodworking magazines about a simple three step, foolproof (thats the part that caught my attention) method finish. The first step was to wipe on and then off a light coat of BLO. "to bring out the natural color" or words to that effect.

Although I was going to whip out the small face vise the very next day cool temps and some sanding etc of the frame was in order first. Among others I wiped the tail vise with BLO just to see what in would look like. and was absolutely amazed.

Photobucket

I had never really seen Cherry with the grain defined like this, probably because so much cherry is stained. And the white Oak looks quite good as well. The face vice was next

Photobucket

Photobucket

I decided that I had no choice but to start the glue up of those pieces that I had cut for the top. I was not really comfortable with the idea of trying to dry glue in sub-freezing temps, but I also didn't want to have to wait until spring. taking it into the house would have been self defeating as I would not be able to lift and carry it back to the shop.

Photobucket

Photobucket

As you can see the glue on the out side had certainly frozen by the next morning.To be a little more comfortable I kept it clamped until the 3 rd day. As nothing seemed to spring apart I crossed my fingers and manipulated it to the planer to start the flattening. with rollers on both sides of the planer i could send it through with a lot of helping it, shave off a small amount. I then shut of the planner, raised the cutting head and rolled it back through and started the process all over again. This soon became a drawn out process. At the end it looked about like this and I was done for the day.
Photobucket
 
#50 ·
It looks great. What is BLO? It sounds like you were happy with the results, I would like to try it. I just don't know what BLO stands for.

I do know…ELO…Electric Light Orchestra
I also know BTO…Bachman Turner Overdrive

So if you could explain wht BLO is, it woudl be greatly appreciated.
 
#55 ·
Design Changes ?

In every project I do there is a time when I discover things that I should thought of before I did what I have done and now have to undo. Before joining this great group I simply called these screw ups, mistakes, of other terms that will not be put in print on a family web site. Now I understand that correcting these little errors can politely called design changes. Of course to non woodworkers this is the way that was intended fro the git-go.
The first little error on this project came when I bought the bolts that holds the whole thing together I knew that they would have to go through about 5 inches or a little less, I therefore set out to buy 5 &1/2 inch bolts. I knew that I needed 28 and that meant I was going to get 30 bolts, large flat washers and 30 lock washers. I also knew that the best price would be on the bulk pkg. When I arrived at HD I discovered that the 5 &1/2 inch carriage bolts were down to about a dozen or so and there were no bulk (contractor) pkg's at all. Without even considering a slightly larger bolt I simply bought what I felt that I needed in 6" length. Jumping forward to actually using them and I discovered that they worked just fine, ...is some places. Other places they protruded so far that I ran out of thread before reaching a tight point. Ok, not a problem just add a spacer on the far side, behind the flat washer and draw every thing tight. Jumping ahead again, adding a bottom shelf won't fit because of the bolt and spacer now in the way. Design change. add a nice looking spacer on the outside before the bolt enters the parts to be bolted togetherPhotobucket

Design change #2 With Mikes help I had planed several boards, and riped them in to 3+inch strips. I selected enough to make the first 11 inch section of top. When i started to cut and glue the 2nd 11 inch section I discovered that I could only get a 67" length while the first had been 69". I had known that this was a possibility and had a contingency plan in reserve, breadboardsPhotobucket

and so this brings me up to date. progress plus design changes (and tons of snow) have kept me very busy but at least it starting to look like a bench.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top