Wood - Where to get it. Part 3

From the woods and verges. Sometimes you can see trees in your locality that are just lying and don’t seem to be going anywhere. Oak and Elm can lie for a few years without spoiling – if you can find out who owns them you may be able to remove them for the asking.

The owners may have already done the sums and decided that the cost of moving them was too high. They may be prepared to leave them to rot, providing a home for grubs and beetles etc. and who are we to disagree with that? You may find that the offer of a free coffee table or a bowl or a set of egg cups, made from it, is enough to swing the matter in your direction, however.

I have to take my commercial hat off now and say that if you can have a tree for nothing and can cut it up any way you want, then having considered how you are going to move it, how you are going to cut it up, and what you are going to use it for, it may well be worth accepting it as you may not be factoring in the cost of your time.

My article “The Non – Electric Chair” is about this situation; a 4 metre stump of Beech tree left standing after a lightening strike and how I used some of the wood to make a chair. The tree was standing on my own ground and there are plenty of others lying rotting for the beetles and insects to live off before the birds eat them. A win-win situation, and if it inspires others to try similar stunts then I’m delighted. There are many fallen trees in the countryside which are not commercially useful but are, in the right circumstances, ideal for the low – tech furniture maker.

Chairs and small items require shorter planks than tables and dressers so you can be far more flexible about what lengths you cut tree trunks into than the commercial cabinetmaker.The obvious purchase is of course a chainsaw, but don’t forget the safety trousers, steel toecap boots and hard hat; the professionals use them and the problem that “weekenders” have is that they don’t have the disciplines that daily usage instills.

There are courses and certificates available and if there is any tool that shouts out “do a course” then it’s this one.
Keep the blade sharp, follow the instructions for fuel mix, etcetera. The conventional chainsaw is not designed for ripping ( you’ll wreck it ) – if you intend to rip with a chain saw check with your supplier if you can get a ripping blade for the model you have in mind before buying it.

If you plan to dry green wood ( freshly cut) once it has been planked follow the following rules;
1) Put battens on the ground, to keep the lowest boards off the ground and place spacers (about 400 mm apart ) between each layer of boards to let the air through.
2) Keep the sun’s rays and the rain off the stack of timber by putting corrugated iron, or similar, on top as a roof; place it on battens on top of the stack to allow air through and tie the roof down to nails in the ends of the battens on the ground. Don’t put the stack against a wall; it’s important to allow the air (or wind) to circulate.
How do you know how long to leave it?- Well, it depends on how thick you have cut it, and what species it is – Pine will dry more quickly than hardwood. The old rule is “one year for every inch of thickness”. I think it might be a bit excessive but you can’t go wrong with that!