how much wood do you have on hand in months or years

I have some wood that is over 50 years in my holding. Still curing. I have some Bois D'arc (Horse Apple) less but nearly that time. It was Turned from a limb and left in rough cylinder awaiting drying and a task. The other wood was Iron Wood from the South Pacific.

Lots of this and that. I'm into metal as well, have exotic and common steel and Al, Cu, Bronze, Nickel and Stainless Steel.

I have double of the trouble...

Mart>

Electric Comet wrote in news:mj924g$hao$2 @dont-email.me:

If measured in how fast I think I'm going to do things - years.

If measured by how fast I actually do things - even more years.

(I've got around 300bf of lumber, mostly cherry and maple).

John

That depends on the project. I have wood for about 3 to 4 years, but one project can exhaust one type of wood b4 I am done with the project.

I had 100bd ft of white oak,

next thing I knew I was down to 5 bd ft of white oak, cleared out the maple and poplar... so you never know. it's project based.

Same here - but I'll add that my wife will be selling wood after I'm dead :-).

Years of wood but never enough for the next piece of furniture.

For me, that's a loaded/odd question, in that, my circumstances are not lik ely the same as with others, here.

Probably/Maybe, unlike many of you, I have/I've made the space for storing my cache. Since high school, I've salvaged lumber from many sources, not that I had a project or some projects in mind, but that I saw the aesthetic value of old lumber (and also old bottles, old furniture/pie safes/cupboar ds, old tools, old architectural hardware & certain trims/corbels/features, etc.). I salvaged & collected when & while the opportunity was good.... and convenient. In the past, my collecting, also, consisted of unusual st umps, root balls, limbs, conks (burls), driftwood and other natural forms.

I did do lots of projects with what I collected, as I collected. I didn't just "collect"! The cache grew faster than I could use it. I'm lucky t o have or to have made the space to store it.

Most of the salvaged lumber came from old houses, barns, etc., many of thos e originally built in the 1800s. I've salvaged many hurricane-downed tree s and had them milled.... I disliked seeing all those trees/logs hauled to the landfill, so I rescued selected ones. The latest walnut trees, I've had milled, was salvaged from some land-clearing, at the farm. A salvaged cypress scab (side of an old sinker log), about 16" thick, 6' wide, 23' lo ng) was milled for door & window facings. About 5 yrs ago, I inherited a generous cache of lumber. I probably salvaged 50% to 60% of the construct ion supplies (among other goodies), from local construction job dumpsters, for remodeling my shop, .... *I collected more than enough 5/8 decking to r e-deck the whole shop roof, about 900 sq ft!

These days, after all that work, collecting, I'm almost too tired and lazy to get out there and do some projects. I usually calculate what's needed, for a project, then get the nephews to come in and do the muscle work, etc . I do most of the "fine"/patient-required/skilled detailed work, that th e nephews don't have the patience and/or skills (yet) to do..... *not that I have great skills, to brag about.

I've never calculated, but I estimate 30K bd ft: Of cypress, walnut, white

-red-live oak, red maple, cherry, pecan, ER cedar, Spanish cedar.... should last me/us a few years.

I can't recall the last time I bought lumber for a specific (hobby/"domesti c") project. I have bought shop remodel/construction supplies: T1-11 sidi ng, facia boards, 1/2" CDX (for the interior sub-walls), 2X10s for making b eams, and the like. I have a standby cache of 3/4" cabinet ply, some 1/2" CDX and some 1/4" & 3/8" luan, for whenever/whatever(?) needed.

I improvise with project design(s), also, and some of my projects have impr essed folks, as well, probably similarly as with your fire pit vase.

Sonny

Simple answer -- never enough. I probably have less than 50BF on hand at a ny one time. Mostly a factor of space. One thing I've learned -- keep the scraps. I always seem to have a little project that calls for a few piece s out of the scrap bins. Just completed a 3-bottle wine rack from a couple of odd pieces of hard rock maple and walnut.

Larry

Holly crap, 30k bd feet. I knew you had a lot, just didn't know how much..

You da man!!!

No clue really as it's spread out over several different locations. Doesn't matter because hubby said I am forbidden to get more. :( I guess that is too much? LOL!

ikely the same as with others, here.

g my cache.

...snip...

tic") project. I have bought shop remodel/construction supplies: T1-11 si ding, facia boards, 1/2" CDX (for the interior sub-walls), 2X10s for making beams, and the like. I have a standby cache of 3/4" cabinet ply, some 1/

So, if I'm reading this correctly, the only wood you've bought is the wood required to build the storage space for the wood that you got for free. ;-)

for me it is simpler to think in terms of length of time until the wood is used up

i have lots of odd shapes and lengths/widths so hard to measure in any other way

nice to have room to collect i could easily collect too much and right now i am on hold for getting any more

good to hear that younger folks are still finding interest in wood

those co ops i mentioned in other thread are popular for the younger and more mobile

a few years is a good buffer i think when i get down to a few months worth i will start looking again

yep sometimes there's no way around buying wood

improvising can be half the fun and is more interesting for me keeps the boredom away

i agree and keep most of my scraps tool handles and all the other little things you can turn on a lathe

you ever do a project just based on stock at hand

i am in that mode no one has come to me with a commission and i think that i like it that way of course if someone did i would probably stunned

i am going to try to exhaust what i have and when it gets low i will get a little more based on what generated interest

i have a tiny bit of cherry it is nice

to get motivated i just start doing something/anything and then i get going gathering momentum i guess

Electric Comet wrote in news:mjijk1$j7h$7 @dont-email.me:

Cherry is my favorite wood to work - it's hard and tight- grained, so makes nice edges and profiles, but at the same time it's not so hard that working with hand tools is painful. Plus it finishes up beautifully with a little linseed oil to bring out the color.

Walnut has similar properties, but the dust from cutting or sanding it irritates me (it's a known lung irritant), so I don't hardly ever use it.

John

I agree, walnut (and cherry) is beautiful and a joy to work with.

I've 25bf of dalbergia nigra that I'm holding for just the perfect project. I've been holding it since the early 80's, and it is not possible to acquire more.

d required to build the storage space for the wood that you got for free. ;

-)

No. For hobby type projects or projects for friends and relatives, I haven 't had to buy lumber in years. I've used what I had, from salvaging and so me from the inherited cache. The only lumber I've bought in the past 5-7 (maybe more) years was supplies for remodeling the shop, that the salvaged stock wouldn't accommodate.

Like this morning, Jonas and I began making a coffee table (cypress salvage ), for Jonas' friend's camp.

My storage facilities are a barn and several sheds, some of which were alre ady in place since my grandparents' days. When we salvaged that old hous e from the farm, I built an overhang on the back side of my shop, to store some of it.... some of this lumber (beams and big stuff) is still on saw ho rses, behind the barn.... we haven't pulled the nails, yet. All the other facilities are just about full, or have no convenient space.

Sonny

I especially like working with walnut, and looking at a walnut project when completed but I absolutely don't enjoy that it is so soft when a project is completed. Walnut furniture is much more sustainable to dents and dings than furniture made with a harder wood like oak.

No big deal. When they tore down the elementary school my elder brother attended (he was 90 a couple of days ago) all the structural beams were solid walnut. The school was probably built circa 1880-1895. Indiana.