Working with trees services, and working and working...

[Brad_S.]

I have perfectly clear walnut 14"-18" wide for example that I have been setting on for 2 years, no buyers 

I'm surprised to hear that. I can't keep that stuff around. Guys who make reproduction period furniture grab them in a heartbeat. Now that walnut is heating up again, it's getting harder to find logs that will yield wide boards in price ranges I can afford.

[Daren]

I have perfectly clear walnut 14"-18" wide for example that I have been setting on for 2 years, no buyers

I'm surprised to hear that. I can't keep that stuff around.

Must just be my market. I of course want a premium for the wider stuff (anything over 12"). I sell mostly to hobby woodworkers and I think one thing is they don't have anything bigger than a 12" planer ? I am not going to sell it s2s, I only sell rough sawn. Another market thing, I ship wood and am leery of planing something to thickness and it get a ding in it. I would rather sell rough/oversized to avoid that, any shipping/handling marks can be planed out by the end user. I'm sure s2s or s4s it would move. I am not sweating it really, just mentioned it, I do not have tons of it and the logs where "free". I cannot keep 6"-8" wide in stock, they will buy 2-7" wide boards before they will one 14" because I want more $ for it.

[Brad_S.]

I too think it's a market thing. I'm blessed to have a high number of per capita woodworkers around me. The hardest to please but non-price conscious are the period furniture builders. I only sell rough to them because they are purists and want to hand plane the lumber. I too charge extra for wide boards and the right buyer doesn't even flinch. Many of these guys think nothing of driving 200 miles to southeastern PA were there are some high end specialty lumber mills and dropping a small fortune on the right wood.

[urbanlumberinc]

I'm in a really similar situation to Daren.  Early on I invested alot of time and money making tree service contacts and attempting to educate them as to what I'm looking for.  So far I have 2 guys that "get it".  Both are older, 2nd generation tree men.  I have a handful of others that come up with a good log now and then when I call and check.  I've tried several times to get more of the tree services on the program, but I've have better luck in just skipping the middle man and try to talk the trees into laying down under my saw for me.

[urbanlumberinc]

Oh, and here's my contribution to the burly wood gallery

Nice american elm I sawed for a customer, little bit burly around the edges, nice flame throught the log

[johncinquo]

daren, sounds like you have some real characters to work with, and have it under control as best as is possible. 

I still love and admire your work, website, and ideas about getting wasted urban timber to SOME kind of use.  I think most municipalities are really wasting a lot of resources just hauling off an dumping everything the cut down.   contract cutters mostly arent much better, get it down and hauled away and on to the next job. 

Good luck and enjoy the wood.   

[Dodgy Loner]

Thanks for answering my question, Daren.  What I wondering whether or not you used the internet to market your wood; sounds like that makes your life a lot easier to be able to market to so many people over such a large area with so little effort.  I bet it would have been a lot more difficult to be succesful at what you do before the age of the internet!

[Daren]

I started working with some of that wood today for the redbud burl tree. I made a table top. I will probably put pictures in the woodworking section too. I will post the finished product some day, I can only work on it in my spare time. It is not finished, just rough sanded and a little water wiped on it.

 

[Dodgy Loner]

Bee-yoo-tee-full.  The most surprising thing is that they're already dry.

[Daren]

  The most surprising thing is that they're already dry.

It has been HOT here. I picked these 2 boards out of the stack and used woodworking clamps and stickers to retrain them and let them air dry in the breeze. They had ALOT of stress. They butted up fresh sawn, after they dried they had a 1 1/4" gap in the middle, they curved that much. If I had not clamped them so tight they would have cupped beyond use too, the boards busted trying to cup. I put just these 2 in a d/h kiln by themselves for 10 days to finish them (had to know if any of this wood was going to turn out, different for sure than most I saw/dry) The rest/better stock I am letting dry a little slower, hopefully with better results. I was just impatient and rushed these to dry.

The tree was standing dead when it was cut down several month ago, it was not sopping wet when I sawed it either.

[rebocardo]

Second one looks like a face caught in a tree ... EBAY! A BURL Ghost!

[PB Logging]

Daren,

I too am in central, IL and we need to talk   Call or email sometime JGreene@consolidated.net  217 532 6400

[mdvaden]

One tree service owner I "work" with is 3rd generation, and he knows trees. He is better at species ID than anyone I personally know (myself included, I still sometimes have to ask), but the anomalies don't interest him. He was by one day and I showed him a big maple burl I had just picked up and his response was "Are those worth something?" I told him that depending on species/size/quality they are worth $1-$20 lb, but most all are worth more that firewood. He said "Funny, I bet I have burned 10 tons of them"...he is only 40 . That was 2 years ago and I have yet to see a burl from him ?

And would you like this madrone base 

Attached .doc - what a wierd way to show it - no .jpgs

[Furby]

Attachments are not allowed for pics, they must be uploaded to your forum gallery.
Instructions for resizing, uploading and posting pics are under the help button at the top of the page.
Lots of folks willing to help if you need a hand.

[baronthered]

Daren that walnut sounds good. I might like to have a look at it. how big a chunk you have there?

[chep]

Cool thread. It is one of my personal goals as an arborist and sawmiller to cut down on urban wastes. However you gotta step back sometimes and look at the scenarios.
I lived in Seattle for a spell and worked for a very small residential tree company, there were about a billion opportunities to save amazing woods. It made my heart ache to cut some of the stuff into firewood or to stuff it into the chipper. But in the end I had to sympathize, the primary goal of a small tree service is to get in, and get out with as little hassle, as little time on the phone and with the customers yard looking better then when we got there. Leaving big burls, and logs lying around a pricey piece of property is the last thing you want your customers to see. (there were occasions when the customer was cool with it...but you gotta know the right things to say)
There were several occasions that I was able to contact a local sawmiller or wood turner and hook them up with some cool pieces, but those times were few and far between, primarily because of a lack of communication.
If you are looking for wood for free or for a small price from your local tree service here is what to do:
Make up a list, tell them species you are after, desirable traits (Burls etc.), cut to length specs, and also ways to position or rig the pieces for the easiest pickup by YOU! Also provide a way to get a hold of you (and please pick up the phone)!
If you want this stuff YOU have got to be on your game. It should only take 1 phone call to get you on site with your equipment (if you want it bad enough). Be available or this stuff is gonna get run through the chipper, or cut into firewood. I cannot stress enough that the primary reason for wood being wasted is that the utilizer (YOU) is not on top of your S*#@!!!
Communicate with you local companies, prove to them that they can rely on you to take away waste wood, offer them incentives. If you are a turner, hook em up with a bowl, if you mill hook em up with an awesome slab . Show them the products that are coming from these "wastes" and they will be much more supportive of you and your intentions.

keep it real
Chep

P.S. The pictures that are being posted in this thread are AMAZING!! Keep em coming...