I'm looking for some advice or suggestions.
The back of our house looks out over a small grove of oak trees owned by the local water department. There are Two oak trees in our backyard and one is possibly the largest oak tree I have ever seen. Each of the trees is at least 200 years old, but it's hard to say. If they are that old, then they would have struggled for nutrients and light in their early years and wouldn't have grown much initially before breaking through the canopy. Two hundred years ago the area was not settled by whites, although whites certainly would have traded there. It was still Native American land.
When we bought the house, the area around it was severly overgrown and in the first two weeks, we took down seven trees and trimmed up one of the oak trees whose branches where rubbing on our cement asbestos shingles. When we had the tree guys cut down the oak, we asked them to leave the large limbs as intact as possible, so now I have four white oak logs, each between five and seven feet in length and ten to sixteen inches in diameter.
There is a sawmill in town and for about $100 I can get them to cut the oak into boards and kiln them. Is it worth it? Am I saving any money by doing this? Anyone know what size lumber I should have it cut into? Anyone have any suggestions what I could turn it into? I'd rather not just turn this into firewood. It would be very cool to point to a piece of furniture and tell someone that it is built from a limb from the oak in back.
The limb alone is at least 125 years old. It would be a shame to send 125 years of growth up into smoke in just one evening.
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6 comments:
Without a doubt, it is worth it. I saw at least one of those logs and it would make several great pieces of furniture. I think if you hit The Despot, you will find it goes for several bucks a board foot, and I am sure there are enough board feet in that log to make it more than worth it.
Can you tell how excited you just made me?
Jaysan said it all.
As far as what to build...tables are good chances to show the wood well and can be made pretty simply.
For the sizes to be cut, you probably want to go for 1" and 2" in whatever widths you can get. You can cut them down then to smaller as needed. You might want a bit at 3" if you want heftier legs anywhere.
I agree wholeheartedly. My only reservation is the party where you ask, "Am I saving any money by doing this?"
Compared to buying the wood? Absolutely. After taking into account all the tools you will probably ending up buying to do something with the wood plus the hours value of said doing, and then comparing to buying pre-made furniture? Um, probably not. But this is way, way, way cooler.
Besides, judging by the boys' reactions, once this is ready to go you could probably talk them into piling all of their tools into a vehicle and doing a week-long furniture-building retreat at your place.
Maybe....
I don't think we'd bring all the tools. Jaysan's table saw is really big and mine fits easily in the back of my car so why bring both?
We'll need to get that hitch put on the Subaru...
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