Too much hardwood - what to do?

Re: Too much hardwood - what to do?

Mark Nowicki

If you can't sell it, burn it. I believe you get winters in MN.

If you want to give it away, drop the morality test.

When I tried to sell some of my hand tools, many potential buyers told me how they would use and cherish them. They were taken aback by my expression of total indifference.

Re: Too much hardwood - what to do?

Don Stephan

Look for woodworking club in the state that makes toys for sick kids.

Re: Too much hardwood - what to do?

John K Jordan

With a sawmill behind my barn I have the same problem if I'm not careful. The lure of lumber is so strong it takes willpower to resist acquiring too much! I turned down a large walnut log recently since I still have walnut. I have white oak, hickory, and cedar logs in piles and a bunch of cherry and other species air dried. I'm thinking of using the cherry for barn siding.

I don't make furniture but do like woodturning, so the thicker pieces are more useful in the shop. I tend to saw and dry plenty 3-4" thick slabs which can be cut into bowl or spindle blanks.

The 8/4 stock is good for Beads of Courage bowls/boxes for kids with cancer. If not familiar with this program perhaps look for the YouTube video. So many kids are benefiting from this program - you probably have turning clubs in your neck of the woods that could make good use of some of the wood. And some people are making segmented BOC boxes from thinner stock. Woodturners have a difficult time finding dry wood for these so gluing up pieces is a good solution.

This is one I made by gluing up pieces of cherry and basswood:

JKJ

Reading comprehension

CJ in MPLS

For a moment I wondered why you had made a container for 'heads' and another for 'courage'.

Retirement community?

JL

My sister works as a "Life Enrichment Coordinator" (Can we say - "Julie, your cruise director"?) for her local retirement community.

They have a wood shop - where the guys get together and shoot the breeze and make things. They have a reasonable amount of equipment (hybrid table saw, jointer, planer, etc.), a lumber rack, etc. Whenever I drive up to my sister's house, I always take up a load of hardwood lumber.

They are over in Oshkosh, WI. I am sure that there are similar shops closer to you that would love to have some of your lumber.

Question

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

"The logs were culls from several logging sales, "

If these logs were of such poor grade-translate poor yield of useful lumber-that the logs were not worth hauling to a mill, and/or a mill would not buy them if they were hauled to a mill, why do you think you have any lumber of value to use, sell or otherwise do something with?

We sold lumber for several decades and I could not convince customers to even consider #1 common ( a grade down from top grade). "Cull" logs are likely to yield at best #2 and #3 common.

And, why was the lumber not edged? There is a tiny market for "natural edge" lumber but the bulk of hardwood usage is for lumber with trimmed edges. It is difficult to do this trimming in the home shop on any sort of quantity of lumber.

You may have a tiny market for some of this lumber in the Twin Cities but I think it will be a long time to find a use for thousands of bdft of it.

another comment

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

4000 bdft, 180 logs, that's less than 30 bdft per log. Now I see why the logs were not marketable. No mill can get any sort of yield/profit from a 30 bdft log. These must have been tiny logs.

Another comment. I doubt that more than 5% of our sales were for 5/4 lumber. 80+% was 4/4.

Re: Too much hardwood - what to do?

Johanna Johanson

Truck it to the southwest! We pay premium prices for hardwood since essentially none exists here.