Just had to tell someone, 'cuz I'm doing this in total isolation. Laboriously salvaging and pulling nails from ancient wood from demolition that would have otherwise just gone to the dump. Redwood from 1890-1940s California, when they unconscionably cut down trees over a millennium old ;_; light as a feather, stronger than steel. Milled ages ago and structurally unfazed. Only a culture beyond salvation would treat this priceless material like trash.
Salvaging station cobbled together from other salvaged scraps. Base is four 6x6 beam ends bracketed together. Old barn hardware handles for tool hangers. Tools include: claw hammer, 3lb hammer, 1" blade chisel, small pry bar, crow bar, nail punch, nail puller, horse brush. Working surfaces include: railroad rail section, steam engine part die block. All together these allow rapid cleanup of most pieces at a comfortable working height.
Here is about 1/3 of the total wood salvaged so far. What's not pictured are the large structural pieces: 4x6, 2x6, 2x4 some almost 20' long.
@neotoy Good for you, I do the same thing!
@neotoy I do the same, even for standard, modern lumber of much less quality. Throw nothing useful away!
@neotoy
That stack of lumber gives me goosebumps.
@kelvin0mql same! love so much that @neotoy is doing this!
@neotoy. Thank you. The redwood trees put many seasons into growing. It is good to treasure the wood.
@neotoy How do you avoid / handle toxic metals from paint and wood preservatives?
@neotoy Bravo. I cringe when observing dumpsters from rebuild projects that are often filled with near-perfect salvageable wood. Unfortunately contractors consider it not worth the time and labor effort to salvage it, transport and store.
The ReStore branch of Habitat for Humanity often gets such materials when they have been delicately removed, also overbought items, where they can be purchased for very low cost.
@neotoy beautiful. Awesome material.
@neotoy @Cdespinosa You could probably get some luthiers interested in it. Salvaged wood is prized for guitars.
@geos What kind(s) of guitars do you make?
@fivetonsflax
Mostly acoustic steel string these days. When I was younger I made electrics also, but now I don't have anything to special to offer in that space. I also repair/restore instruments made between 1890 and 1950.
@geos The guitar in the photo with my cat is a 1934 Gibson L-00.
I’d love to see some photos of your work if you have any you’d like to share.
@fivetonsflax
I have been taking photos for years and saying someday I am going to post them somewhere. I'll get on that. A 1934 L-00 is the holy grail for a lot of players. It is extraordinary for finger style blues, but you probably already know that. I love that size guitar. I am partial to 00 / 000 / and OM size.
@fivetonsflax
I've had a couple of 30s Kalamazoo KG-14 models come through my shop. They are the same body mold as an L-00 but ladder braced, no truss rod, and usually made lower grade wood (Gibson made them in the depression era). I really like that body size and scale.
@geos I know those. Elijah Wald played one — I think his was from the ‘40s though — at my local bookstore when he came through to read from his recent _Jelly Roll Blues_ book.
@fivetonsflax Thanks for asking.
@neotoy
When I worked as a timberwright in CO we recycled old growth doug fir timbers from warehouses in Seattle to timberframe homes. As woodcrafter at Grand Teton N.P. I recycled redwood from S.E. AK water tanks to make the signs. Bought a load for myself to make doors & cabinets for a cabin I built in WY. Wonderful wood. Enjoy your project.
@ArrowbearMoore That door is gorgeous!
@jendefer Thank you, the house is full of them with different designs. It was fun.
@neotoy OMG thank you for doing this. And yes, absolutely priceless.
There is something quite satisfying, isn't there? I have done more of this in my life that you can shake a stick at. If I valued my time at anything at all, the economics would never work out compared to going to a store that sells salvaged old growth and buying it.
I have a portable bandsaw, so I often start with large timbers, skimming a century's worth of paint off the surface and squaring them up, hoping I found all the nails first.
One particular timber, old growth western red cedar that somehow found its way into an old warehouse in the Bay Area, had a large bullet lodged in it. The tree had grown around it, been cut down, sawn into lumber, been incorporated into a building for 100 years, dismantled and is now part of the siding on my house.
These pieces of wood have stories.
(I documented the whole process with this particular timber. This reminds me to write a little story about it.)
@neotoy Agreed!
Reminds me of something a chemical engineer said a long time ago about oil: that it's too marvelous and useful a material to be burned for fuel!
@neotoy
Depending the width and cut (quarter sawn) it could make great guitar tops. Even if it is not wide enough for 2 piece tops, 4 piece tops are still acceptable.
@neotoy
Amen.
I discovered a wonderful place her in Portland called Lovett Salvage that saves all kinds of old growth wood and salvaged building material.
There are laws now in some states to make deconstruction of buildings required - to reuse the parts. About time.
@neotoy This should be the standard. There is far too much 'throwaway, it's rubbish' in modern culture.
@neotoy Good on you. When I was a ranch kid in the Sierras, Dad taught us to treat redwood like gold. It was never thrown away.
@neotoy old neighbours had their 80’s mahogany framed windows replaced with UPVC. Sadly the mahogany frames were gone before I could save them…hopefully the window guys saved them, but likely they were dumped
We salvage every scrap of wood, there’s a growing woodpile for future projects.
Thanks for saving the redwood
@neotoy I have a dumpster full of 100-200 year old oak, pine, and chestnut from a structural repair job here, and I'm debating whether it's worth removing all the metal and sorting/cutting out all the insect damage to do this. There are a TON of rusted nails in this stuff...
@neotoy i have freinds that rescued a 100 year old dance parlor floor of 6cm thick oak from the trash. Was a berlin dance establishment dating back to the twenties, i believe. The floor lives on! You are not alone ;-)
@neotoy you and me both. A local joiner dropped off a door and frame he'd taken out of a house being renovated. It was meant to be firewood, but it's solid mahogany, including the panels, and there's enough for at least 2 guitars, so Nephew gets one as well. It pains me that so much stuff gets thrown away.
@neotoy Hmm, yes. In the early 1980s I lived in a 2-1/2 story 17 room mansion, in West Los Angeles, built when it was the only house in the area in what is now called Mar Vista. 100% redwood, built in 1903, solid, immune to termites, immune to everything. Earthquakes caused some issues with the footings of ths house but it still stands today.
My father taught me about redwood back in the 1960s. Not easy to work with. You have to develop a feel for it. It's a very strange wood. Splinters are brutal. But insects won't touch it. Nothing touches it, from my observations.
@neotoy That's good work you're doing there.
Keep at it.