I'd see if you can find a reclaim wood store - and maybe you can
find some good planks.

Remember Redwood is considered a hard wood. Not rock hard. Most of
old town San Francisco is Redwood in the buildings. After the Great
fire and earthquake, they used Redwood from the San Lorenzo valley
(near Santa Cruz) to rebuild. Massive sawmills shipped northward on barges.

A number of good sources might be on the west bay - Some of the old
wood might have been parts of clipper ships and would be very good.

Martin


On 10/12/2013 9:15 PM, Mac Davis wrote:
On Sat, 12 Oct 2013 09:17:57 -0700, scritch
wrote:
I was told that they took out several oak groves on the San Francisco
Peninsula....
Oak was the preferred wood when strenghth was required....

My great-grandfather was a carpenter in Palo Alto California in the
early part of the 20th century (in fact, he was in the 1st graduating
class at Stanford University), but he hurt his back and had to quit. To
keep his hand in he built a small lathe from scrap parts and wood. I
have inherited the head- and tail-stocks, a couple of tools made from
old files, and various attachments such as a sanding disk.

However, the ways and the stocks parted ways sometime in the distant
past. I would like to make a pair of short ways to mount the stocks on,
but I want to keep them period-appropriate, and want to use wood that
was cheaply available in the 1920's. Most of the wood in the bits I
have is redwood, which was cheap and plentiful in the San Francisco
region then. Not now, though! Besides, I live in Seattle, and virgin
redwood compares to tropical hardwoods in availability and price.

I could use Douglas fir (I have a bunch of old growth VG fir salvage),
but was this wood generally available and cheap in San Francisco then?
Or were other types of pine more generally available?

Ironically, I grew up in the Bay Area, but I didn't get into woodworking
until I moved up to Seattle, so I never paid attention to wood when I
was a kid. Should have, though. I do remember that the local lumber
yard carried 4-foot-wide redwood shelving as a stock item.

Thanks for any help you can give.

scritch