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Scored A Few Free Walnut Boards


kmmcrafts

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Clearly the definition of a "couple" is different in Michigan then it is here in East TN.  😉 Thank you for saving all that beautiful wood from the wood stove. 😲 Feel free to stop and drop off any excess you have next time you are traveling through this way on your way to the beach. 😉 Rough cut is no issue, DH has a planer, a jointer, and a large sander so I can make it work. ☺️

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9 hours ago, jbrowning said:

Congratulation nice haul Kevin, I'm wanting to get some Walnut to cut my Merry Christmas Trains on. But haven't had a chance to go to the wood store here in town.

Jim

I rarely use Walnut.. mostly because I won't buy it.. Love the look and nice to work with but pricey. Sometimes a customer will request it so I try to make sure to have a couple boards around. 

3 hours ago, OCtoolguy said:

Kevin, I have no idea how often you get a load like that but have you thought of going into the scroll saw wood business? It might prove to be profitable. You're getting the wood for free so it's just the milling. The rest is profit.

 

it's kind of a hit and miss thing with getting lumber at this scale.. The sad thing is about this walnut or any pile of lumber like this that I get is.. Customers bring in their logs to my brother and pay him to cut it.. He sticker stacks it and then they never come to get it. He was paid 10 years ago for this walnut. Customer never come picked it up.. and then he looses contact with customer so this pile for instance.. There was 6 times this amount on the stack however the top 1/3 and the bottom 1/3 of the two big stacks was rotted so bad that you try to lift a board up and it just crumbles into pieces. 

The deal was I go through the stacks and clean up the rotted stuff by putting what is junk but solid enough to burn into a bin after I cut it into 4ft lengths so they can fit in his wood boiler. salvaged lumber goes to me.. the crumbled up mess I have to run the articulating loader tracker with the bucket to scoop it up and dispose of it into another big bin. I spend a better part of a afternoon to get this. Many times there's not that much "good" lumber.. Had it been something other than walnut I probably might have declined the deal. Last year I got a couple loads of maple.. some spalted and some birdseye etc.. That was about the same size load of lumber I got. He goes through and cleans this stuff up every few years.. 

I can get all the free cutoffs from the mill so long as I stand there and sort it as they run the mill.. fresh off the saw.. The issue with that is I have to be there to do it and it's green / undried.. Those short pieces many times split if you try to run in the kiln.. sometimes stickered and air drying I can get lucky and salvage maybe half of what I drag home.. but has to be sticker dried for at least a year.. Just not a very practical way to do it.. I am fortunate to be able to do all this but it does come with a price and a lot of work / hassle to sell it.. My brother that owns the mill is my oldest brother of 7 brothers and I am the youngest. He's ( I think ) around 75 and this year has started a half retirement or just kinda working part time.. 

I'd love to go through my brothers stash of lumber.. Over the years when they'd run across some really neat grain etc.. he saved out some stuff.. being in the lumber business his whole life.. He has a big building stuffed full of really neat and probably rare pieces. I imagine one day I'll go through it.. He has told me several times to go in and sort through and take what I want.. as he'll never use it all. Problem.. none off it is really organized at all.. and I just don't have time to spend months / years going through it, LOL There is enough lumber in there to fill up several flat bed semi trucks.. LOL 

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