My grandfather past away this year and his country "estate" was split
up amoung his children. My aunt got the land that had the house where
he was born and raised (he was 93 when he died). The house hasn't been
lived in for many years but is still in relatively good shape
considering its age. Anyway, my aunt told me I could salvage any wood
from the house that I wanted. I pulled a few of the exterior wall
planks and brought them home recently to check out. As soon as I cut
into it I could smell that tourpentine smell like you smell from fat
lighter. It's certainly nothing like the fat lighter we use to use to
start fires (it's not sticky with resin) but it definitely has that
sweet smell. I assume that this wood is old long leaf pine??? So my
question is this...will this wood be good to build furniture with? If
it is, I would probably never have to buy wood again, especially if I
can get to the true 2x4 studs. I haven't even looked at the floor
joists yet but I would think they would probably be pretty big
considering the age of the house. Any thoughts? If it is usuable,
what type of finish would you suggest? I'm a shellac man myself.

Thanks for your help,
Greg

wrote in message
considering its age. Anyway, my aunt told me I could salvage any wood
from the house that I wanted. I pulled a few of the exterior wall
planks and brought them home recently to check out.

How much time do you have to harvest this wood?

My aunt wants to haved it burned by the local fire dept for practice at
some point but she would most likely give me as much time as I need.
Greg

Greg:

Get all that stuff you can. It might be any number of pine types
depending on your region. It almost doesn't matter what kind of pine
you are looking at... it will be old growth stuff that is a joy to work
with. It is hard, somtimes brittle, and is a bit like working with
some of today's exotic.

Ahhh... but the smell. Makes you think of carpenters long gone by.
And with some of hte stuff I have salvaged that was like this, it
looked like some of the finest of woods available to the discerning
eye. No kiddin... some of the annular rings were less than an eighth
of an inch apart on some of the stuff I have found in the these old
houses!

When I have a chance to remodel or work on an oldie, I usually save
some of the wood, even if it is to make a pen or spoon or something
from the old stuff just so I can work with it. The 2x4s used as
framing are better material than a lot of the trim I seem to be buying
these days.

Keep that stuff cool and dark though. It will be stable as a stone if
you do, but it won't tolerate a really hot day (San Antonio TX, last
Saturday was 98+) in the back of the truck. Those wonderful smells you
are getting are because of the resins still in the wood. They will
flash off quickly if they are cooking outside somewhere exposed to the
UV.

Robert

In article .com,
wrote:

No kiddin... some of the annular rings were less than an eighth
of an inch apart on some of the stuff I have found in the these old
houses!

I've posted this tidbit before so should probably look it up to double
check my memory but here goes anyway:

A few years back, 0I built a small step stool for our then 3 year old
so's she could reach the bathroom countertop and sink. The wood was
salvaged from our attic and eave crawl spaces when I insulated a few
years earlier. Douglas Fir, old growth, harvested c. 1920.

In a 4" wide quartersawn section there are just over 200 rings as I
recall - that's a ring between every 1/32" and 1/64". Had to use an awl
point to keep my place when I counted.
--
Owen Lowe
The Fly-by-Night Copper Company
__________

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
Corporate States of America and to the
Republicans for which it stands, one nation,
under debt, easily divisible, with liberty
and justice for oil."
- Wiley Miller, Non Sequitur, 1/24/05

Fly-by-Night CC wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:

No kiddin... some of the annular rings were less than an eighth
of an inch apart on some of the stuff I have found in the these old
houses!

I've posted this tidbit before so should probably look it up to
double
check my memory but here goes anyway:

A few years back, 0I built a small step stool for our then 3 year old

so's she could reach the bathroom countertop and sink. The wood was
salvaged from our attic and eave crawl spaces when I insulated a few
years earlier. Douglas Fir, old growth, harvested c. 1920.

In a 4" wide quartersawn section there are just over 200 rings as I
recall - that's a ring between every 1/32" and 1/64". Had to use an
awl
point to keep my place when I counted.
--

Check out www.heartpine.com. Generally, in reclaimed SYP, a minimum of
6 rings per inch is acceptable, and it is often possible to find as
many as 30, so your figure is only mildly surprising. All that time
seasoning means the color is a lot better, too. Today, an awful lot of
SYP gets knocked down at about 10-15 years old, the better to feed pulp
and chip mills.

Well, I finally took a piece of the wood I had and removed the old
paint and sanded it. It is absolutely beautiful. There are about 15
rings per inch and it is very hard. I put a little shellac on one side
and wow. I need as much of this stuff as I can possibly salvage!

Thanks,
Greg

In article . com,
wrote:

Well, I finally took a piece of the wood I had and removed the old
paint and sanded it. It is absolutely beautiful. There are about 15
rings per inch and it is very hard. I put a little shellac on one side
and wow. I need as much of this stuff as I can possibly salvage!

Hate to be one to throw a wet blanket but be careful sanding painted
vintage wood. Practically all paints prior to the '70s contained lead
and sanding even a chemically stripped wood will release small particles
of the lead paint into the air where you and others may breathe it in.
(One of the hazards of old houses is that operating the double-hung
windows creates lead paint dust from the abrasion of the painted
surfaces - kids get the dust on their hands or teethe on the sill and
can ingest enough lead to harm their development.) Ultimately it's up to
you to decide the risks but thought I'd put the reminder out there
anyway.
--
Owen Lowe
The Fly-by-Night Copper Company
__________

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
Corporate States of America and to the
Republicans for which it stands, one nation,
under debt, easily divisible, with liberty
and justice for oil."
- Wiley Miller, Non Sequitur, 1/24/05

On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:54:02 -0700, the inscrutable Fly-by-Night CC
spake:

In article . com,
wrote:

Well, I finally took a piece of the wood I had and removed the old
paint and sanded it. It is absolutely beautiful. There are about 15
rings per inch and it is very hard. I put a little shellac on one side
and wow. I need as much of this stuff as I can possibly salvage!

Hate to be one to throw a wet blanket but be careful sanding painted
vintage wood. Practically all paints prior to the '70s contained lead
and sanding even a chemically stripped wood will release small particles
of the lead paint into the air where you and others may breathe it in.
(One of the hazards of old houses is that operating the double-hung
windows creates lead paint dust from the abrasion of the painted
surfaces - kids get the dust on their hands or teethe on the sill and
can ingest enough lead to harm their development.) Ultimately it's up to
you to decide the risks but thought I'd put the reminder out there
anyway.

OK, let's see a show of hands. To make it easier, looking for a
smaller number of hands. Let's just raise ours if we have NOT ever
been fishing and bit the little lead BB sinker onto our lines with
our teeth. Let's raise our hands only if we have NEVER played with
lead soldiers or stained glass came or wheel weights on our cars.
Let's raise our hands if we have NEVER soldered anything.

Those of us not raising our hands are all reasonably alive, eh? We
survived it as our parents and grandparents did. The risks are much
less than one thinks if one follows the headlines.

So, were there any hands raised here at all? If so, I'd bet we could
count 'em on one hand, even after a tablesaur accident.

Owie, drop by your local library and pick up a copy of Michael
Crichton's newest book "State of Fear". It'll put an interesting bit
of perspective into your life. Do the research (on the questions he
brings up in you mind) to verify it for yourself. (THAT is the scary
part. Everything we thought we knew about all these calamities was
wrong.)

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-
http://www.diversify.com Wondrous Website Design

In article ,
Larry Jaques wrote:

OK, let's see a show of hands. To make it easier, looking for a
smaller number of hands. Let's just raise ours if we have NOT ever
been fishing and bit the little lead BB sinker onto our lines with
our teeth. Let's raise our hands only if we have NEVER played with
lead soldiers or stained glass came or wheel weights on our cars.
Let's raise our hands if we have NEVER soldered anything.

Those of us not raising our hands are all reasonably alive, eh? We
survived it as our parents and grandparents did. The risks are much
less than one thinks if one follows the headlines.

Yeahbut just think how much more intelligent we'd be today if we hadn't
done all those things? Hell, by now we'd be teletransporting and
traveling at light speed if'n it weren't for those damn sinkers and lead
toys (don't forget tetraethyl lead in gas).

My 70 year old mother frequently makes negative comments about the
safety measures and products of today that didn't exist when I was
growing up - like bike helmets and car seats. I remind her that just
because my siblings and I didn't die or be seriously injured doesn't
mean other parents aren't living with the loss or permanent damage their
kids suffered.

One can certainly take precautions and protections too far - to the
point of dulling life's experiences unnecessarily - but for the moderate
price and mild inconvenience of strapping a helmet on my kid's noggin or
clipping her into a car seat, it's a small price to pay for what I
consider reasonable and common sense-ical.
--
Owen Lowe
The Fly-by-Night Copper Company
__________

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
Corporate States of America and to the
Republicans for which it stands, one nation,
under debt, easily divisible, with liberty
and justice for oil."
- Wiley Miller, Non Sequitur, 1/24/05

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

Owie, drop by your local library and pick up a copy of Michael
Crichton's newest book "State of Fear". It'll put an interesting
bit
of perspective into your life. Do the research (on the questions he
brings up in you mind) to verify it for yourself. (THAT is the
scary
part. Everything we thought we knew about all these calamities was
wrong.)

Citing Crichton's novel as evidence of anything serious doesn't carry
much weight. I work with environmental scientists every day and
consider myself pretty well versed in the basics of climate change
science. His novel is a joke-- colleagues of mine are actually using
it to teach undergrads what's wrong with the whole "global warming is
a myth" school of thought.

You and other adults around us may not show any problems from lead
exposure. But the EPA action level is, IIRC, just 10mcg/dl in human
blood. Studies show that levels above 6mcg/dl in children can result
in serious mental impairment. How many of the "less bright" adults
around us may have been exposed to lead as children back when we all
"knew it was safe" before those whacky environmentalists tried to
scare us all?

Working with lead painted wood can be safe if you're careful, but I
wouldn't do it indoors and wouldn't consider doing it anyplace around
children. Just be sure you don't inhale or ingest any particles and
you'll be OK. The tougher task is making sure none of it gets tracked
into the house on your shoes or clothes, or in any other way creates
a hazard to kids or pregnant women.

-kiwanda

On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 13:14:07 -0700, the inscrutable Fly-by-Night CC
spake:

In article ,
Larry Jaques wrote:

OK, let's see a show of hands. To make it easier, looking for a
smaller number of hands. Let's just raise ours if we have NOT ever
been fishing and bit the little lead BB sinker onto our lines with
our teeth. Let's raise our hands only if we have NEVER played with
lead soldiers or stained glass came or wheel weights on our cars.
Let's raise our hands if we have NEVER soldered anything.

Those of us not raising our hands are all reasonably alive, eh? We
survived it as our parents and grandparents did. The risks are much
less than one thinks if one follows the headlines.

Yeahbut just think how much more intelligent we'd be today if we hadn't
done all those things? Hell, by now we'd be teletransporting and
traveling at light speed if'n it weren't for those damn sinkers and lead
toys (don't forget tetraethyl lead in gas).

g


My 70 year old mother frequently makes negative comments about the
safety measures and products of today that didn't exist when I was
growing up - like bike helmets and car seats. I remind her that just
because my siblings and I didn't die or be seriously injured doesn't
mean other parents aren't living with the loss or permanent damage their
kids suffered.

Granted, but look what's happening out there.


One can certainly take precautions and protections too far - to the
point of dulling life's experiences unnecessarily - but for the moderate

Insurance bills have quintupled this decade to pay for bogus claims.
Attorneys have been let into court to fight for said bogosity. People
are getting settlements which raise the cost of products for all of
us and it was their fault for being STUPID in the first place. I'm
tired of paying more for (or not being able to buy any longer) items
which have been totally changed for "safety" reasons. I'm ****ed aobut
them taking my allergy medicine off the shelf because it was a danger
to women. I'm not a woman, so label it MEN ONLY and give it back!
WTFO? This is one of my hot buttons and I could rant for hours on it,
so I'd better nip it now. sigh Well, maybe just a bit more...

Our fearless(?) leader(?) Shrub has wasted the first $30B on total
nonsense under the guise of "national security" which wouldn't stop
a single terrorist for more than about 20 minutes. Do YOU feel safer
spending an extra 3 hours in "security" to go flying while all the
baggage has been passed directly into the belly of the plane totally
uninspected? I sure don't.

M. Jackson and M. Stewart end up in jail while Simpson and most of
Enron, the Clintoons, bin Laden, et. al., go free. Do you feel safer?


price and mild inconvenience of strapping a helmet on my kid's noggin or
clipping her into a car seat, it's a small price to pay for what I
consider reasonable and common sense-ical.

Since falling down is a daily occurrence for kids, helmets are a good
idea. I believe in seat belts in cars, too. And if adults want to ride
motorcycles without helmets, I'm OK with that, too. I just want their
status changed with the insurance company/hospital/clinic/MD. If they
have an accident, it's their responsibility, not the ins. co., etc.
Ditto people who don't use seat belts. Use a belt, get coverage.
Otherwise it's a personal responsibility thing. Let's pass THAT one
law and we'll all be better off. To do my part, I'm thinking of
getting a DNR tattoo for my wrist. If and when I'm damaged that badly,
DO NOT RESUSCITATE, just let me go. I've already donated my body to
science fiction.

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-
http://www.diversify.com Wondrous Website Design