mat60 Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Everything ok today Eric? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolmetscher007 Posted February 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 What about mail-order places like Bell Forest and http://www.woodworkerssource.com/? How do they stay in business? The shipping costs must make their lumber astronomical. Comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 15 minutes ago, Dolmetscher007 said: What about mail-order places like Bell Forest and http://www.woodworkerssource.com/? How do they stay in business? The shipping costs must make their lumber astronomical. Comments? Everyone pays to ship what does not grow locally. They seem to only be marginally higher as they break out into smaller orders vs rail car loads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post woodbutcher74 Posted February 20, 2017 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 I have been to Eric's "lumber yard." I can attest to the quality and courtesy I received while there, Stopped on a weekend vacation. What seems to be the problem with new woodworkers is that they search for lumber yards. To me lumber is what you build a house or a deck with. You should search for a hardwood dealer. sawmill or a woodworking store. Just a thought. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barron Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Age does not always equal width ( in people or trees). I recall from way back in the last century when I was training to be a forester, a spruce in the Arctic that measured 1" in diameter that was over 100 years old. It's expensive to hold a stand of trees a long time so most commercial forests are managed on the shortest rotation possible. Everything from planting spacing to thinning to harvest are designed to produce a product to sell quickly. The result is a lot of 2x4 material intended for framing a house or pulp, not making furniture. A lot of hardwood is coming from second growth forests that grew on old farm fields without any planning at all. Some of it is great, some isn't. Unfortunately, much of that material is being turned into pellets for the European power market, so finding good hardwood may become more difficult. Add in things like the emerald ash borer and my suggestion is when you find good wood, buy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 1" in dia ? Or 1' in dia ? I would like to see that tree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolmetscher007 Posted February 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 22 minutes ago, wdwerker said: 1" in dia ? Or 1' in dia ? I would like to see that tree. Man... I'm sure he meant 1 ft. but growing up in Georgia, I almost swear I saw some 40 ft. high pine trees that were no wider then 3-4" in diameter. When it stormed hard, all the trees in my parent's yard looked like 30-40' swamp grass or cat-tails swaying in a swamp breeze. Like rubber pencils stuck point-first into the ground. At least once every few years one of the pines would snap in a storm and land on the house. I'd seen movies and cartoons where great trees would crash through a house, or destroy a truck by falling on it. These pines would snap at the base, and then snap in the middle like a pencil wherever they'd hit the house. There would be some relatively minor damage to the roof that might require someone come out and do some patching here and there, but I've honestly seen pine trees snap so easily, that this is why I've just never made anything out of pine. I'd love to be able to see some old heart pine alone side some new garbage pine so I can see the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Arctic and spruce makes me think 1" diameter at 24" height. After all, this is the goal of bonsai at its origin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 He could have very well meant 1". Look at the Bristlecone pines. I believe Methuselah is approaching five thousand years old. Of course dwarf trees of any variety are not really relevant to a woodworking conversation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulldog Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 1 hour ago, Eric. said: Of course dwarf trees of any variety are not really relevant to a woodworking conversation. Hey! Did you just assume my Dendr? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 I have a handful of ponderosas from the Rockies i trained as bonsai, and they are quite old. During the initial styling, i took off a few branches the thickness of my thumb and they were about 25-30 years worth of rings. The main trunks are 3", so you could reason that the trees are pushing 75-100 years of age. The bark and exposed deadwood is pretty awesome on trees that grow in harsh climates. Now, compare my 2' tall 100 year old ponderosas to the same species that grow at lower elevations that are 50'+ tall and dead straight. The wood is inherently connected to environmental conditions, which is why you have nostalgia for the past supply of lumber. Nostalgia might be the wrong word, because there are factual differences. Didnt the industry change grading over the last century to reflect a decline in size and quality? Great material is still out there to be had, and in similar widths to the boards of yesteryear. You just have to pay for it now, where as it was the norm back then. Aside from the fantasy scenario where every forest is old growth, would you advocate logging current day old growth forests? I certainly do not have the heart for it. I can handle dealing with 8" wide boards just fine in order to preserve the remaining virgin groves. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 There are groves of virgins ? Where ? (Only if they are legal and willing) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 2 hours ago, Mike. said: I was curious if there are any "virgin" forest stands in the chicago area. Turkey Run near Indy is worth the visit if you are ever in that area. It is likely a three hour drive for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barron Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 It was one inch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 @Eric., do you still do bonsai? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 Fernbank Forest is 65 acres of mature mixed forest . It's some of the last undisturbed trees in the piedmont. I remember visiting it when I was a Cub Scout. I have a few bonsai that I have made, killed a few too. Looking at taking a refresher course soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Staehling Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 I have found that the lumber yards that are likely to treat you the way you describe are the ones that sell lumber mostly to the construction industry or other largish commercial customers. They are not the kind of place that I want to shop for lumber. They are usually selling big lots of lumber mostly not in the species that I am interested in. At the other end of the spectrum are places that sell hardwoods to hobby woodworkers and charge really high prices while usually having a selection of small quantities of a variety of species at a premium price. Some of these are also tool suppliers like Woodcraft. These are not my choice either. I find that there are lumber mills that have a variety of hardwoods at decent prices who sell to small buyers as a major portion of their customers. Some are a one man or family operation. Before I moved south there were a lot of these within an hour drive of home in Amish country (SE Pennsylvania). They had a great stock and were good to deal with. Prices were fair. Depending on the region they will be fewer and further between, but they should be available in your area, maybe with a day trip to shop. I don't know your area well, but a google search would likely turn up several family run or one man mills that are within an hour drive. I am sometimes willing to make an overnight trip to somewhere to lumber shop. I'd even go to Groff and Groff or Hearns in SE PA if they weren't 1000 miles away from here. I will sometimes even go that far if I can figure out a way for the trip to have more than one purpose, in my case visiting family in Maryland is a good excuse for a stop in SE PA. I might also look up sawmills when I travel for backpacking trips or other recreational activities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinity Tools Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 If your interested in the difference in annual growth rings for different species of wood, check our some tone woods like Sitka Spruce. An exceptional piece of spruce for a guitar top might have 40 grain lines per inch. Over a 10" wide board that is quarter sawn you are looking at a tree that was over 400 years old and maybe 36" or so in diameter. My Dining room table on the other hand has a Camphor slab top that is 40" wide and the tree it came from was no more than 50 years old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted February 22, 2017 Report Share Posted February 22, 2017 reply test to this thread where my post in it was not the last one.+"Heart Pine" is the heart wood of the Long Leaf Pine tree. This part of the country was full of virgin growth of such trees when our country was started. There are few of those stands left any more. If you find trees as large as those were of the same Long Leaf Pine, the wood will be as good. It's not necessarily about the rate of growth. It takes a LONG time any kind of way for the heart to get large enough to cut 18" wide planks out of. Most of the Pine trees today, in the same geographic region as those virgin pines, are a completely different type of Pine called Loblolly. There are very few stands of it left any more that get as large as those Long Leafs were that what we call "Heart Pine" came out of. The land that either grows in now is not much different than it was hundreds of years ago. The only thing that speeds up the process is hybridization of the trees that are planted. Today, most people who raise Pine trees for income manage it to get the most tonnage per acre with quality of log not considered. My family has raised trees for one of our incomes for generations, and Brunswick County, Virginia, where I grew up, is the largest producer of timber in Virginia even now. We had one of the largest stands of old trees around until Hurricane Fran decimated that forest, and we had no choice but to clear cut it, or loose it. It's now a stand of Loblolly that we are getting ready to have thinned this Spring. Pine lumber is entirely different now than it was as recently as the early 1990's because of the way it's processed. When I started building houses in 1974, and up through 1991, when the last of the old mills around here closed, you could buy a Yellow Pine (mostly Loblolly) 2x4 and not only was it straight, but it would stay straight. The reason the lumber was stable was because it was air dried for at least a year on stickers, and then kiln dried slowly in a kiln fired by sawdust, and finally run through straight line saws, and then dressed (planed) to final dimensions. There used to be one of those such mills every 20 or 30 miles around here. No longer. The big box, chain building suppliers put them out of business with cheaper production methods. These days, the logs are saw one day, they go through a kiln that night, the next day they are cut to final dimensions, bundled up, and strapped. You need to stand back when you cut one of these straps because there is so much stress in the wood, that the bundle will almost explode when the straps are cut. still getting weird merges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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