Estate Sale Wood

tryppyr

tryppyr

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Feb 5, 2010
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A few weeks ago my wife and I went to an estate sale in North Seattle. I rarely find anything at those things, but at this sale the guy had a garage-workshop with a bunch of hand tools. Stacked outside the garage were some large and heavy log slices. I looked them over and found three that had interesting burl patterns. They were maked $3 apiece, but it was the last day of the sale so they were half price. I got all three (roughly 40 pounds of wood) for $4.50.

When I got it home I sliced off some and cut it into irregular knife handle blanks, and sent them off for stabilization.

This week, after visiting the exotic wood guy, I decided to continue that work on the lighter colored log in the bunch. It has some very interesting patterns and color changes in it. I'm not sure how well this will translate into knife handles, but I'm willing to give it a try. Anyway, I cut out 10 blanks, maybe 6 of which will be worth using (not counting the ones I cut off a couple of weeks ago).

Anyway, the point of all this is to keep your eyes open for estate sales that mention tools (especially woodworking tools), as they may also have some usable wood. Turns out, trolling the estate sales is one of the ways the exotic wood guy gets his supply too.

- Greg
 
Wow, that's fantastic - you going to sell any of your stabilized wood once you get it back?
 
I'm more likely to give it away than sell it.

One thing I learned while visiting the exotic wood guy is using Naphtha to display the pattern that will reveal itself in the wood without raising the grain.

I did that on the pieces that I worked on this morning and it revealed that the burl pattern was on the short side of the blocks (which would usually become the top and bottom of the handle). I decided to cut the rest of the log up correctly so that the burl is on the sides. So now I have two batches. I'm not saying the first batch is useless, it just isn't as pretty as it could be.

And I believe that will apply to the pieces I already sent to get stabilized. So like I said, I'm more likely to give those away than sell them.

Hey, I'm still learning. You don't pay student barbers, why should you pay student wood processors? :)

- Greg
 
Here are a couple of pictures of one of the throw away pieces that I hastily sanded with 80 grit and wiped a little tung oil onto.

DSCN5101s.JPG


DSCN5102s.JPG


Can anyone identify the wood? I know I can't.

- Greg
 
It looks a lot like madrona to me, but it could just as easily be half a dozen other things too.
 
Man Tryppyr, that is fantastic,any throw away could be thrown into a box with my addy on it, then I would throw in some Ironwood with your address on it.....
 
If it helps to identify, here's the last remaining chunk of the exterior of the log. You can also see some of the secondary color (pale yellow) in the edge.

DSCN5103s.JPG
 
I'm still going with madrona. Madrona is highly chatoyant, by the way. If the pattern of the burl shifts as you change the angle that you're looking at the wood at, that would pretty much confirm it.
 
Yes, the pattern does shift as you view it from different angles. Pretty cool effect.

- Greg
 
Thanks for the ident, Samael. Here's a picture of the other two hunks of wood I bought (that will soon be cut up).

DSCN5107s.JPG
 
Wow, I really wish I was a little closer to you, I would love to go check out the wood you've picked up lately. Let me know when you get your wood back, especially if you have any scales - let us at least pay for the stabilizing!
 
I'm pretty confident the top pic is maple burl and the pic in your last photo post is redwood.
 
Nick,

You might be correct. This photo shows on the left a piece of maple burl I bought Friday, and on the right an undressed piece of the mystery wood. The chunk on the left also has a pale yellow bit at the top (cropped out of the image) that's similar to the mystery wood's yellow sections.

DSCN5109s.JPG
 
Great find! The guy was probably a wood turner who preferred burls & exotics. (I'm glad these beauties will be handles rather than bowls :).)

It's hard to tell from a picture but both of the last pics appear to be maple:

DSCN5109s.JPG


On these I would say that the left one is redwood and the right one amboyna:

DSCN5107s.JPG


I wish my amboyna had had that $3 price sticker!

Gary
 
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I did some processing on the burned out chunk on the right. As near as I can tell it is nothing more than cedar. It cuts very easily, gives off that distinctive cedar aroma, and has a lot of cracks and voids in it as if it is dry rotted. Probably nothing useful there. Grain patterns aren't all that interesting either.

- Greg
 
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