Free wood gloat

Keep in mind that wood for pallets and crates is not dried to the same specs that furniture grade wood would be. Let it dry or check it with a moisture meter to be sure of what you have. It was probably fumigated also so some air time is good to dissipate any outgassing.

I've recovered some of the wood used for dunnage and had good results with it but I did not use it for a year. Ed

Friend of mine's dad was transferred to Vanuatu, and came back 2yrs later. The locals packed everything in HUGE crates nearly 8 feet long. When they arrived, his dad knew what he had, so he asked that the crates be delivered to his house un-touched.

When he got home, he uncrated the stuff and stored the 4/4 ROSEWOOD planks that they used - all 55 or 60 of them - in his garage. Let them dry for a LONG time and to air out, and when I made a dresser out of it a year ago, the results were speechlessly fantastic.

I'm getting real happy now! I slabbed off a one inch board and I have never seen anything so perfect. It almost looks like it's not real! I'm going to make the 60 mile trip and pick up about 50 of them. Hopefully they will dry out after I resaw them in about a year.

In Guam everything was luan/Phillipine mahogany or australian ironwood, yours looks a lot like luan. Dave in Fairfax

Some of the dunnage we scrounged in Agana was really exotic stuff. It was mostly boxed hearts and narrows. Teak, rosewood, you name it.

Of course that was back during the SEA festivities....

You're absolutely right, I was thinkin' of the run-of-the-mill stuff. I miss cheap mahogany ply and expensive pine. Life was ruff. Also the weekly fiestas. And the diving. And the hunting. Damn, I wish my Ex wasn't there. Dave in Fairfax

You wouldn't believe how much wood a Buff can haul on a ferry to the 'states. But I'll take home and hardwood amongst the snowdrifts rather than go back for more.

Can't argue with that. Dave in Fairfax

Lauan is a common name that is applied to Asian wood from any of four different genuses (red meranti is one) and about

Proabably the crating/pallet material is a mix of those lauans.

Out of curiosity, what is the product and where is it being received?

Once when driving from Balmore to Philladelphia I looked off the the right of the highway (I think it was I-95) and saw the mother of all pallet dumps in the middle of a big vacant lot. Probably these were mostly imports. I wonder what sorts of wood might be found there.

Fred the Red Shirt schreef

• + + Basically this is right but it is an oversimplification. "lauan" is the Philippine name for a type of wood that is found in a much larger region, and has other names in other areas, such as "meranti" or "seraya". Botanically there are two (three) genera ('genuses') involved: Shorea and Parashorea (plus a bit of Hopea), and indeed 200 species is as good a guess as any for the number of species in these two genera. There are indeed four tradegroups in the "lauan" category of wood: (1) white, (2) yellow, (3) red and (4) dark red. In addition Shorea yields three more trade groups: (5) bangkirai, (6) red balau and (7) balau.
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soft and light as balsa.

• + + Just about. The hardest woods in Shorea are much harder than teak (teak not being particularly hard), but the heavier grades of Shorea are not in the "lauan" league.
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resembles mahogany. Some are so resinous that the surface is sticky after being planed. Some have excellent rot resistant and are substituted for teak for outdoor furniture.

• + + Well, going by the picture I would tend to vote against lauan (the second from the right being the most likely candidate for lauan). As far as anything can be told by the picture the three on the right may (or may not) be the suggested apitong (Dipterocarpus: a nasty wood, but useful in rugged work) as they have the same sheen and are more or less in that color range. The three on the left could be any of a number of woods.

But the picture is such that any guess is just that: a guess PvR