neotoyOct 2, 2024
Just had to tell someone, 'cuz I'm doing this in total isolation. Laboriously salvaging and pulling nails from ancient wood from demolition that would have otherwise just gone to the dump. Redwood from 1890-1940s California, when they unconscionably cut down trees over a millennium old ;_; light as a feather, stronger than steel. Milled ages ago and structurally unfazed. Only a culture beyond salvation would treat this priceless material like trash.
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@neotoy

There is something quite satisfying, isn't there? I have done more of this in my life that you can shake a stick at. If I valued my time at anything at all, the economics would never work out compared to going to a store that sells salvaged old growth and buying it.

I have a portable bandsaw, so I often start with large timbers, skimming a century's worth of paint off the surface and squaring them up, hoping I found all the nails first.

One particular timber, old growth western red cedar that somehow found its way into an old warehouse in the Bay Area, had a large bullet lodged in it. The tree had grown around it, been cut down, sawn into lumber, been incorporated into a building for 100 years, dismantled and is now part of the siding on my house.

These pieces of wood have stories.

(I documented the whole process with this particular timber. This reminds me to write a little story about it.)

Oct 3, 2024 at 1:47amWeb