Short Logs need Employment

[Nehmo Sergheyev]

In Kansas City, Missouri, after ice storms and on other occasions too, the city opens a yard

where without cost you can drop off brush (branches, logs, and leaves, but nothing else). Right now it's open because there was a recent ice storm. If you want, you can *take away* anything there for free. The city gives away firewood and converts some of the brush to mulch and gives that away too.

Naturally, a lot of what makes up the pile are short logs. These are an assortment, but many are a foot in diameter and about two feet long, thereabouts. Easily, you can pick up thousands of logs with these dimensions. Is there any possible use for this wood?

[rcook5]

Offhand I can think of a couple of hundred or so uses for wood like this.

We don't get ice storms around here, but we do get pretty good winds that tend to take down trees. A lot of people collect the cut-up pieces for carving, turning, etc. They'd also be nice for cutting into lumber for jewelry boxes and other small projects. And if you go through the pile, I'll bet you'll find some stumps (where the whole tree was uprooted) with really nice figure.

--RC

--RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr.

[bridger]

if they're green wood, and recently cut, you might find some stuff there for turning.

[Nehmo Sergheyev]

- bridger -

- Nehmo - I don't have a lathe, but it looks like making bowls is fun:

didn't know you could use green wood that way.

[deanbrown3d]

Sounds just right for a furnace! Give them to me:)

[Nehmo Sergheyev]

- deanbrown3d -

- Nehmo - If you pay shipping...

As I mentioned, Kansas City does give away this wood for fuel, even though much of it is green. Some municipality in New Jersey may do the same as Kansas City.

[Larry Caldwell]

Sounds like a shake bolt to me, though a good shake bolt is more like

2' in diameter. Are any of them cedar?

[rcook5]

You don't need a lathe for making bowls. Just gouge them out freeform. I use a sculptor's adze (bowlmaker's adze would be better), scorp, and woodcarver's tools. You could also cheat and use a Lancelot tool and a router for a lot of it.

My way is time-consuming, but fun, especially in green wood.

--RC "Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells 'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets fly with a club. -- John W. Cambell Jr.

[Nehmo Sergheyev]

- Larry Caldwell -

- Nehmo ? I had to look that up:

- Any short log specially cut to length, usually for the manufacture of a specific product (e.g., shake bolt).

So you're suggesting getting the cedar logs and making shake.

- Larry Caldwell - Are any of them cedar?

- Nehmo ? There's plenty of everything, including cedar, that grows here.

[Larry Caldwell]

Naw, you wanted to know if there was any specific use for 2' lengths of log. That's one. You have to pay attention cutting shake bolts. You need clear wood, because knots will leak. A shake bolt is the length of clear wood between limb rings.

You might get yourself a mallet and froe and see what comes out. In the old days, pioneers would split their own shakes any time the house needed a roof.

[Duane Bozarth]

Larry Caldwell wrote: ....

No, out here they hitched up the team and turned over more sod... :)

[Larry Caldwell]

Those weren't pioneers, they were tourists, just passing through.

Nobody lives there any more...

The prairie states are approaching unsettled population density. At least now that the buffalo are gone, they can grow trees.

[Bob Morrison]

Hand splitting enough shakes to do a full roof is a lot of hard work. Might be better to take the "bolts" to a shake mill and trade them in for already split shakes. You will have to give them some cash, but not as much as if you bought the shakes from a lumber yard.

[Doug Chadduck]

We have quite a number of home turned bowls from one of my wife's cousins. He always laughs because it's obvious the bowls he made when patience was lacking and he couldn't wait any longer for the wood to dry. They're the ones with the most personality though. He says he's been pretty lucky and doesn't lose very many to cracking.

[Duane Bozarth]

Not us...we been here since the plow...that's a lot later than some other places, but no miners here.. :)

Some things are to be thankful for... :)

Well, actually, they aren't gone...quite an industry, actually. Not as large as beef or pork, but not inconsequential...

Nope...never trees and if it to go back to fully unsettled, the ones here would be gone after the first grass fire, never to be re-established owing to arid climate and repetitive fires.

[Lobby Dosser]

And, IIRC, the eastern forests had buffalo.

[Luigi Zanasi]

None north of the Great Lakes so not in Quebec & Ontario. As far south as northern Florida and the Gulf of Mexico coast. They lived mostly west of the Appalachians, but they reached the Atlantic in Georgia and Florida. For a map:

[Duane Bozarth]

...

Not eastern, anyway...I think east of the Mississippi there were essentially unknown--although that may be more 8th grade history/geography than real...interesting question, I'll have to look into that.

Where do you mean/are you thinking of by "eastern" forests?

[fredfighter]

were

There were the bison of the Great Plains and the woods buffalo. I think that buffalo lived (and mabe still do) as far east as Quebec, but I'm not sure how far south they lived in the Eastern US.

[Duane Bozarth]

Ah...that's the difference...I was thinking only of the plains bison and had forgotten there was another.