Theyellowtreeworksho Posted February 12, 2017 Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 Hi. I hope I'm in the right section. New here and a long time fan of the wood whisperer. I just picked up 1000 pieces of English Oak from a old school. Currently covered in tar. I have cleaned up a couple and manage to size them to roughly 200,60,20 mm My problem is, I'd love to make some furniture out of it but not sure how to glue them into usable board sizes. Can anyone help? Thank you in advance Dom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 12, 2017 Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 Dom, can you share photos? If the tar is fully removed, and whatever you used to revoe the tar is also removed, any standard wood glue can work. Your pieces need to be straight,flat, and smooth, but gluing the edges or faces together will form a bond stronger than the wood itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted February 12, 2017 Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 I know how hard it is to remove tar, so I'll just come right out & say it; toss it all out & go buy some better wood. Those are pretty small pieces to start with & by the time you mill them down to get rid of all the staining there won't be much left. Especially if they're red oak. Sorry to be negative, and welcome to the forum. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theyellowtreeworksho Posted February 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 Thank you for the quick response. Cleaning the tar off is easy with my old thicknesser. Two passes and it's gone. As you can tell from the pictures. Issue is the size of what's left. Making them wider is easy it's just increasing the length than I'm unsure about. Let's say...I want a 1000x600mm board. Can I just glue it up in a brickwork pattern? Will it be strong enough for a small table top? I was looking into finger joint cutters for the router table but heard they are a pain to use. ThankS for the welcome, hopefully next topic will be a better one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeslayer Posted February 12, 2017 Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 that looks like white oak to me, having a lot of something is not always a good thing, those pieces are so small glueing them up end to end would be a waste of time IMO, you could use them for small projects if you're really attached to them, white oak is nice to work with but to try to make long boards out of them would not end well. and, welcome to the forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theyellowtreeworksho Posted February 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2017 I was afraid that would be the case. Cutting boards maybe. It's a shame as it was free. It is nice to work with indeed. If anyone has any ideas what I could use all this timber for. I would greatly appreciate it as taking up a large amount of space. Thank you for the help and advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat60 Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 Maybe look for a book on small projects like boxes and small gifts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 You could glue the wide faces together (they are already sooth) to make a very thick chopping block style cutting board. But, I think you can only make so many of those. Small boxes might work particularly if you have some thinner pieces. What about some signs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown craftsman Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 I think you should practice making dovetail boxes. After going thru that stack you should be a expert. Too bad about the tar looking like some nice wood. Aj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 Glue them up brick style to make it longer and thicker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 Agree with wdwerker, you can glue them up to make panels / beams as large as you like. Do the "brick pattern" in all three dimensions to gain width, thickness AND length. It may look different, but should be perfectly sound material to work with. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theyellowtreeworksho Posted February 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 Thank you for all great comments. Today is the day I go through as many as possible and get rid of all that tar! After that I'll dimension them all. A week to do this? either way, I will try and glue up some large panels. If that fails, some small cutting boards and other projects to take to the market. I do need to practice my dovetails...maybe a couple. I'm not hung up on using this oak for anything special really. I was thinking the other day that it would be nice to use it for a large piece as the oak itself has a long history. The school installed the floor in the 1920s and has only just been picked up. From what I was told anyway. That as well as not being able to get English Oak very easy anymore. Well I'm guessing it'll be English Oak. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnesota Steve Posted February 14, 2017 Report Share Posted February 14, 2017 I just saw a blog article about that last week! Lost Art Press promoting their Roubo book titled "Different Ways to Elongate Wood" I think I would try to do something that uses the wood as it is. Like a parquet patterned table top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BonPacific Posted February 14, 2017 Report Share Posted February 14, 2017 Have you built your requisite Ruobo workbench yet? Seriously, you could make a hell of a workbench top out of those. Workbenches are good spots for wood with a history, and you won't care about the odd look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.