Gye Greene's Thoughts: Wood stashes

Similar to a quilter who has boxes of interesting scraps of fabric all over the house, I have stashes of wood for future projects. Some of them have been around for a number of years -- out in the weather: one of my "To Do" projects is to make a shelter for them. But, by accident, I've learned that wood lasts a really long time "out in the weather" -- as long as its not lying in the dirt, and it has a chance to dry out again.

This is the pile of wood that inspired this blog entry: I was selling something on Gumtree (the AU analog of Craigslist), and the buyer asked whether this was some sort of sculpture.

Nope: just some chunks of wood, held up by some empty, inverted plastic pots. I split the wood before it dries, so that the wood has "somewhere to go" when it shrinks as it dries. And I paint the ends to try to minimize moisture loss from the ends (again, to minimize splitting and end-checking).

The rubber boot is there as a size reference: I'm taking the photo with one boot and one stocking foot.

The photo is dark, because it's inside my chicken coop! -- but here's a sash of 50+ year old beams that I've found around my property. Been lying in the dirt (or, when it rains: mud) for decades -- but only the surface was eaten away: the core is good. Hardwood; reddish color: when slabbed it'll make some nice-looking lumber.

Would consider leaving some surfaces "weathered", and other surfaces smooth and oiled and pinky-red.

These are quartered "small logs", I guess you'd call them? It's on a metal rack (a table, minus the top?). Gonna make it into a rustic table: it'll be an experiment to see if I can do the minimum amount of processing, and in particular, no slabbing. Instead, the ends will be "tongued", to fit into grooves in the simple rails, and the legs will be tenoned into the bottoms of the rails. I'll handplane the upper surface of the tabletop, but there's no need to plane (or even shape) the underside. You'll see (eventually).

I think it's some sort of eucalyptus, but I'm not sure. I wrote it down on the underside of some of them -- but I couldn't be bothered un-stacking the pile to see.

This isn't "finally", as I have other stashes -- including under the eaves (back of the house), and on the (fairly long) front porch. Anyhow: a cedar-looking wood (except it isn't). A boot again, as a size reference. No specific plans or vision: maybe a rustic bench?