dumpster find. what do I do now?

Possible strategic move

Wiley Horne


>Redwood weathers naturally to a beautiful silvery color, at least it does out here. So in the right surroundings, it looks nice in the garden--for railings, steps, gates, fencing, arbor, etc. Or Papillon housing. Strategy: make her happy. Subplot: Do you need a new saw or somesuch to do this project?

Wiley

Re: Possible strategic move

V Parisian


>Thanks for the reply. Got all the tools covered. I was thinking of the garden angle but most pieces are just too short. Trim pieces maybe?

I did see a terrific modern looking dog house with multi levels etc. on the net a while back when this was first running through my head.

As an asside I had to laugh to myself when I saw that somewhere along the way some of the redwood pieces had been replaced with pressure treated lumber that had been painted with silver paint to blend in. This too was in the dumpster.

Regards

Victor

Salvaged Redwood

Bob Hutchins in central Texas


>Is Rice building a new football stadium or just renovating?

I salvaged some relatively short pieces of clear redwood 2x6 from a deck repair. The deck was about 15 years old and had weathered considerably on the top side. I've used the shorter pieces to make bird feeders and bird houses. I've also made a coupla trays and a holder for napkins, salt and pepper for grilling. Of course, I ripped the thickness down for all these pieces. For the trays and holders, I wiped on a poly/turps/blo mixture. It darkened the redwood down to a color much like walnut.

HTH

BobH, who used to live in Sugar Land.

renovations only

V Parisian

Re: dumpster find. what do I do now?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA


>Redwood glues beautifully with common glues, and is a stable wood. The sapwood's not terribly durable, but the heartwood is. When I did my porch reconstruction a couple of years ago, I used joists that had been under the porch for 50 or more years, getting rained on every winter, as stock for the railings down the steps, and, under the surface roughness, it was still lovely clean solid stock.

It's a soft and brittle wood, so not recommended for heavy structural uses (in spite of which many turn-of-the-last-century houses here on the North Coast, including ours, are built with redwood structural members, often in frighteningly small sections, and hold up fine). On vacation last year, we wound up in a little museum up in redwood logging country, and the docent/guide had grown up in the area. One of his stories was about felling trees to serve as bridges across some of the creeks/ravines. He commented, in passing, that you could fell a Douglas fir across a ravine and it would make a great bridge; but a redwood the same size across the same ravine would shatter.

Re: dumpster find. what do I do now?

Thom D


>I would convert it into strips for canoes or other projects of that type (mail boxes hot tubs) Just rip it into strips, I use a bandsaw for that. I hand plane the strips using a shoji set up (shoki are another potion though obviously light woods are prefered. Each 2x4 x 3' is about 4 square feet of strip yielding, more than enough for a canoe. You are going to need a fingerjointing jig for that much material. Not sure what this is doing on the hand tool board. :0)

Thanks Bill

Victor P


>I cleaned up several pieces this evening. It has a lot of character. I haven't found a single knot yet. I'm going to push some through the band saw tomarrow evening, I think I'll glue up a couple of panel doors for grins. I'm thinking that the person who told me it was covered with aluminum was mistaken. Looks like I got about 140 pieces. Several projects here with low material cost. After I hit it with the jack plane I'll report back.

Regards

Victor

Flower boxes?

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

Re: Flower boxes?

V Parisian


>Thanks guys. Finger joints? Yes that would be a tough one with a hand saw (not impossible, but very tedious).

Flower boxes? Possibility there. I have a bunch of plants that could be repotted. It would certainly test the aging characteristics of this beautiful wood. I'll post a pic on this one if I do it.

victor

Re: Flower boxes?

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod


>Long ago I made a long, narrow window flower box out of pine. Filled it up with dirt, put in the flowers and it rotted to mush within 3 years. If I were doing it again, even with redwood, I'd use a metal insert or keep the flowers (and dirt) in plastic pots to avoid constant dampness on the wood.

Ed