Why Work with Reclaimed Lumber

Creating something using reclaimed wood is truly a unique process, different from any other type of work.  First of all we must accept the deformations, and the flaws that affect each individual board. You must look through the obvious issues caused by flawed wood and realize that the character in that piece is the story and life attached to it. The years of exposure to wind, rain, heat and cold, man and animal, have helped create a distinctive board and a genuine personality that cannot be imitated or repeated no matter how hard we try. We must find a way to use those short comings to our advantage, not fight them.  It is a different process than going to your local lumber mill where a person rejects the boards that are littered with knots or cupped like a bowl and twisted like a spring. When we use reclaimed lumber what we see is what we get. We have learned to accept and respect the wood and all of its imperfections. We must use the holes left by nails, we must work with the coil of the wood.  Quite simply, reclaimed wood has a quality that cannot be found in fresh cut lumber  and offers technical and creative challenges that are absent from lumber mill or engineered wood.




 5SYAQ2S5KDJC 

The Carnival is in Town

The carnival came to town this weekend causing the local kids to run around like idiots hopped up on cotton candy and coca cola. Of course by carnival we mean the woodworking show and by hopped up kids we mean us. There was so much to look at in this traveling wonderland. Table saws, band saws, routers, lathes all looking like the models of the party that everyone wants to talk to. We were the shy guys however that only looked from a distance because we know that they are way out of our league and we didn’t have a chance of taking one home. So we walked around mingling with the regular guys of the party, router bits, sharpening stones and sand paper, and that suited us just fine.  We bought a few small items for the shop and put many more on the list.  If nothing else the woodworking show seems to remind us of our goals and where we want to be in the future. So we will eagerly await for the next visit of the woodworking show and perhaps next year we will work up the nerve to talk to the table saws and sawmills.