https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/television/colbert-trump-pandemic-response.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210622&instance_id=33568&nl=the-morning&regi_id=131061635&segment_id=61363&te=1&user_id=df63bce65bfcbd120833576608d62177

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1013819703/what-the-rise-and-fall-of-lumber-prices-tell-us-about-the-pandemic-economy?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2Vr5WtGwK1J3B_0yaWwP2lry6xxW6x93gAqWGebP6KdL1ufL3NXXlxh5A

 

Local lumber yards are cheaper and better quality.  

I don't think we've seen such a fuss over material shortages since Pharoah cancelled straw deliveries.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1013819703/what-the-rise-and-fall-of-lumber-prices-tell-us-about-the-pandemic-economy?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2Vr5WtGwK1J3B_0yaWwP2lry6xxW6x93gAqWGebP6KdL1ufL3NXXlxh5A

 

And even if two-by-fours are no longer propping up inflation, that doesn't mean prices will return to their pre-pandemic wood floor. So lumber may continue to capture headlines as yet another example of a product upended by the unprecedented pandemic.

"It's kind of like the price of gasoline," says Jalbert, the economist. "Lumber has been the sort of poster child for these supply shocks that we've seen."

 

Sounds familiar,

 

On 6/16/2021 at 8:16 AM, DuckSoup said:

 I'm sure there are warehouses full of lumber and they can decide how much to ship just to control the prices & then blame it on a lack of delivery drivers. Same game went on with the oil prices when Katrina hit. Jack the price up so high then cut it in half and people think they are getting a deal & don't realize it's double what it was a year ago. 

 

So, this morning I visit a sawmill. Stacks and stacks of mostly heart pine beams, some huge hemlock joists, whole tree trunks sliced in halves and thirds and wholes. Plenty of other woods.

 

The Kid tries to get $50 for a cut-off barely longer than a foot, saying its board-foot 'value' is $90. I stick at $20 and eventually walk away. Run into the Top Man (owner) on the way out, start chatting, end up getting the scrap of what he says is heart pine, for $20. see image, bottom chunk

 

Top queries me about plumbing. He's got a leak. I fix a solder joint on an exterior hose bib using his everything (Channellocks, scratch cloth, ancient flux, rosin-core solder which worked!).  No more puddles adjacent to his  Wood-Mizer LT40HDG24. We chat more, he tells me anything in the dumpster is free. I grab a couple of pieces see image, middle and top chunks

 

Top says my "Douglas fir" JOIST (not 'beam', as I called it, and he did correct me) is hemlock. That between 1880 and 1910 HUGE trees were milled in Washington and Oregon, shipped across country, and used in post Civil War construction. Black walnut, Top calls "a weed tree" but he has it. The Kid says NO to ripping my hemlock; I do not ask Top.

 

 

Not sure how to pull it off with only a hand-held circular saw; I'll go on studying for now, maybe harvest a series of planks from the top-right corner. After checking for nails, pins, screws, spikes.

 

Not sure what you are wanting to accomplish with your proposed cut lines Jim.  We have a couple sawyers on board, perhaps they can offer some suggestions on how to tackle the project to get what you are after.

@jthornton

@Kevin Beitz

 

Here is a write up on the different types of log cuts you might find helpful:

https://woditex.com/2021/11/30/plain-sawn-quarter-sawn-rift-sawn-and-live-sawn-lumber/

 

 

2 hours ago, Cal said:

proposed cut lines

Rift sawn hobby planks. Ripped 45˚ to grain if possible. For now, I'll keep it simple.

 

Thanks for the link, I've seen that one and many others. Many are a little different to one another, and even at the mill yesterday, they had their own definition of quarter vs. rift sawing. 

 

Interesting note: I've passed the mill many times in the early 1990s, and only noticed / found it when doing a search for "how to do rift sawing".

Experimented with the middle piece, ripping with the hand-held circular saw. Not too bad, but a table saw with taller blade would have produced a better end product. But I've got a few boards to keep me out of trouble. The remainder for quarter-sawn goes into the basement.

 

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Dovetail said:

Experimented with the middle piece, ripping with the hand-held circular saw. Not too bad...

Nicely done Jim. Some beautiful grain in those pieces.

3 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Some beautiful grain in those pieces.

Thanks, Doc! And this was the free chunk I pulled out of his 40 yard dumpster. If I can get a clean enough cut, I can make my wall-mount headboard with this "scrap". I'm one used $60 table saw away from greatness. 

 

7 hours ago, Cal said:

Not sure what you are wanting to accomplish

Well, I tried staring at the beam end, even made a template to view just one proposed board's grain. Got dizzy, figured the neighbors would start to wonder.  So I did it the old fashioned way, via computer. A 'study' to stare at from the couch. And sure enough, I did get a better idea for Round I with the supposed longleaf pine: Pitch off the shaded corner, then make a series of cuts from the newly-flattened deck. They are turned 90˚ from the example a few posts up. This should maximize the grain as close to rift sawn as I can get: cutting 45˚ to the grain.

 

On 4/14/2022 at 3:25 PM, Grandpadave52 said:

Nicely done Jim. Some beautiful grain in those pieces.

Thanks, Dave. Today I separated the rough pieces I'll resaw from the bottom beam end of what is stacked in the image above, in my truck bed. But I'm thinking the remainder of middle piece is where I'll get the nicest wood. Time will tell, but there's a moistness and life in this remainder, where-as what I hacked apart today, there was a lot of damage.

 

I'm making a drive 115 miles south to see a nice Delta table saw; the motor makes a noise, but with the full cabinet and all, it's got the right price. There's a motor guy up the street, but the seller says it cuts fine.

 

The top piece, I ripped, and got eight unspectacular planks. After they are squared up on my new 30-year-old Delta, I'll add them to this thread. That remainder might be decent.

 

Next week I'll visit the West Philly rehab, see if that pile is still out front.There was one joist with decent tight heart wood of unknown species visible.

 

 

3 hours ago, Woodman said:

I'm making a drive 115 miles south to see a nice Delta table saw; the motor makes a noise, but with the full cabinet and all, it's got the right price. There's a motor guy up the street, but the seller says it cuts fine.

Safe travels. Hope saw is a good one and deal works out.

Just back from the sawmill guy.  No bought or dumpster heart pine today.  Some nice trimmings from a run of flooring. A decent chunk of 9/4 x 9 x 24 they cut from production because connection bolt holes ran through it. All Douglas fir, I believe. Heck, the seventeen feet of clear 1x2 trimmings was worth the cost of admission (gifted plumbing fittings; see below).

 

We talked wood and saws.  Gave the guy some plumbing fittings he will need. Working up to hit him for a nice piece of beam cut-off the next time he has a decent chunk. Met his daughter. She was not impressed.    

 

She perked up after I was introduced as "the guy who fixed the pipe". They were squirting water around their dancing dog. Evidently fixing the water pipe is a big deal to father and daughter. 

 

 

 

Still have to get back to West Philly, see if the joist I discovered last Thursday is still there. It could be pine, spruce, hemlock.