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DRP
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# Posted: 7 Jun 2025 07:47am - Edited by: DRP
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I got the blower cobbled together at the job and test ran it. Looks like it'll work so I ordered new bags and need to order a length of flex pipe to run to the planer. That's the first pic below.
The next 2 are of a pair of story sticks I was using to measure the length of ceiling joists. I needed accurate inside to inside measurements and was also working solo. A pair of sticks slid until they bump at each end, scribe a mark and head for the sawbench. If you're doing trim or very accurate work, scribe and mark with a knife. An old framer would use a race knife and roman numerals rather than a pencil to label the different members.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_knife
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 7 Jun 2025 11:56am
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Quoting: DRP I got the blower cobbled together
It's a Woodtek...used to be sold by Woodworkers Supply in Albuquerque. I worked there a while back in the late 80s. Sorta like Grizzly tools and machinery. They went out of business about 3 years after owner John Wirth passed.
The race knife is interesting. I never heard of them before. I could have used one instead of markers years ago.
I've used story sticks though. Folding rules are one of my favorite measuring tools. And knifes for cut lines.
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DRP
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# Posted: 8 Jun 2025 09:01am - Edited by: DRP
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I think my drill press is a WoodTek, it would be in the later part of that timeframe. I remember a glitch and ended up with one complete mortising attachment and parts for most of another... they must have just shipped another complete one.
On the race knife, I don't think I've seen knifed carpenters marks on anything newer than the late 1800's. I wonder when pencils became mass produced.
Cleaning up in the shop yesterday... or rather moving stuff around while looking for a lost tool, this page surfaced. It comes from the VT solar kiln construction guide which is online I believe. Anyway, that table is a good reference for how fast you can safely dry different species of hardwoods without turning the load into toothpicks. Highly refractory species like red oak can be slowpokes. I noticed they didn't even list white oak, red oak is far easier and faster than white. On the other side softwoods with their large tracheids can release moisture pretty fast. Southern pines being the easiest to dry, a high temp kiln can dry SYP from green to 19% in a day. That would destroy a load of hardwood but just kind of toasts the pine  .
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 8 Jun 2025 09:09am - Edited by: MtnDon
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Quoting: DRP I wonder when pencils became mass produced.
Late 1800s according to google.
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 8 Jun 2025 10:21am
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Trees, wood. Each piece unique. I was working as a heavy duty mechanic and getting tired of 6 long day weeks. So quit n started a custom woodworking shop. I was introduced into woodworking in high school shop. Ol sweed teacher that learned as an apprentice under craftsmen.
Wasn't easy but built up a customer base n reputation. Had a kitchen on the TV a few times. Tell my customers to try to think of something that they thought could never be built. Customize to their design. Then the furniture stores didn't sell what I offered. And never told anyone no. And worked a lot of hours for zero pay. But I learned. Did that for over 10 years and then life tossed out another door to walk through. I still fiddle around and doing custom trim for the new house.
I'd but wood 1000 bd ft at a time. Really needed to learn to read the wood and minuapulate it to last lifetimes. Carefully planning each cut out of each board for whatever I was making
Hey thanks for bringing back some great memories. And I can't hardly wait to get out into the bush looking for moose antlers and looking at every tree. There is a birch tree on our land. 2 guys can't reach around. Covered in burls. The whole tree. I figure it's full of curly birch. Just need to figure out how to freight it out. It needs to get used, it's old growth. I cut a white spruce that beetles killed in front of the cabin. Over 225 years old. Made a bevel cut slab and using it to mount the 58" non typical moose antlers that I called in and out son harvested. Huge bull I estimate 1400 pounds.
Any of you folks use your cabins for hunting ?
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DRP
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# Posted: 9 Jun 2025 07:18am
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I don't have enough gun for that, have mercy.
That's cool on the custom shop. Share some stories. I worked in a few cabinet and furniture shops but kept gravitating back outside towards the rough end. I do like to use wood from the site to make trim and paneling in houses when we can. On this one it is local, the red oak was from my neighborhood.
... there was an old 1840's log cabin (race knife marks on the gable and roof timbers, Civil War sword stashed in a chink joint between logs). The roof had leaked and the top plate log was rotten. I asked my client, 7th generation owner, what she would like for me to do. "Well, I reckon you need to go up canoe holler and grab another like they did back then". (The original inhabitants of the land had gone up there for dugout stock, her ancestors had felled the cabin logs in the same cove, nice trees back in there.) I did as directed, and fought that building inspector for 20 years till he was promoted
It sounds like you need a chainsaw mill for the occasional tree up there. There is a big burl on a tree in the woods here. I've looked, knocked on it. I don't know enough to tell if it is a gem or just a bunch of included bark without opening it up.
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 9 Jun 2025 11:59am - Edited by: Aklogcabin
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Woodworking story. I mentioned the kitchen. Young couple was building a huge lodge type building. Huge post n bean frame. 4 stories. 7 bed with bath.
They wanted to use only local wood from Alaska. Kitchen, center cutting island 6'x7'x2-1/4" thick hard maple. With drop in sink. They had 2 little girls so I made 4 leg stools matching turned legs.. I had a jeweler make brass labels with their names on them. They tucked into the corners of the island and were there so kids could help mom in the kitchen.
The stove/oven was commercial big. With broken stone around it to the 10' cieling. I turned 6' spindles matching the stool legs and desk legs. And split it to go on each side of the stone. The lower cabinets I used birch. I used the dark heart wood for center panels and book matched cut them. Used burl heart wood. With lighter sap wood for the frames. Upper cabinets make to reach the cieling has frosted glass in birch frames. Refrigerator skinned in birch
Dining room table. Birch. 4x8 with 3, 2 foot extensions to stretch 14'. Turned legs matching the kitchen.
Stair treads. 4"×12"×4' long white pine. Enough for 3 sets so like 45 to 50 . A lot. And I installed them to glue lams for risers.
Dumbwaiter doors. 4 sets of fire resistant material. A buddy gave me some concrete inside fire doors from a hospital he helped demo still with the cert tags. I skinned them with birch.
I built the 7 bathroom vanities from birch including solid birch tops. The customer when to South America and bought hand crafted n painted clay pottery sinks in installed. Absolutely beautiful. They wanted me to do the bedroom sets also but not enough time for me. I'm a 1 man show.
They bought some end tables that I produced. I used my smaller scraps to make stuff to market. Lamps I turned.
I use 3 coats minimum polyurethane for everything. Every hidden corner is still hand sanded smooth no sliders. Every job.
Notable mention. An oller lady was in a wheelchair and wanted a custom kitchen in her new home. Fro knotty pine. And somewhat jokingly says she wants a knot in every board. I've got a bunch of eastern knotty pine. I always had the wood in my shop stabilize to the shops relative humidity before I used it so usually had several thousand feet of red oak. Knotty pine, walnut n such. And a bunch of different exotics.
Anyhows back to the pine kitchen. Got me thinking wood n lost myself there. I made the counters 30 " tall instead of 36" . Same hight as basins and kitchen tables. Be more easy for her. The sink cabinet was cut inward so she could reach the sink easier and I mounted the faucet in the front. I did all the counter tops so I designed them so I could install a 1" brass rail under the edge so she could pull herself around the kitchen easier. She was such a sweet lady, I still miss her.
Knotty pine. Lady wanted 8 pre hung doors more that 2" thick. I had some 2-1/2" rough cut knotty pine. I always bought rough cut to save money and have enough stock to plane to 3/4". So make them 2-1/4" thick and she wanted iron hinges. And all the base board trim doors had hand made plinth blocks in the corners. Really some nice looking doors.
Executive desks. Well they always want more for less. Keep calling adding more work n not wanting to pay. But 6 thousand dollar desks don't come often although I've done a few.
Did a bookcase. They wanted it in a hallway but visible from the living room. So I built the face 17 degrees stant to favor the living room so they could see it. 12' tall 11' long. With ladder on brass rod. She collected pottery so I designed it with a bunch of lighted display boxes with spindle rails. I don't built bookcase with parallel shelves. I will make every shelf on a different plane. Makes it original. Also make some louvered closet doors from red oak. 4' wide 12' tall. And a serpent house from plexiglass all with no square out corners. Customer stuff.
It was hard starting but something I wanted to do in my life so I did. Quit a very well paying job to barely making ends meet. But I believe that a became of the best, I could be. Using old school techniques I learned In high school. I was offered the opportunity to learn about wood and hooked forever. And got to live my dreams.
Then I got to build a log cabin in the bush. Another story
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 9 Jun 2025 12:09pm
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Yeah though it looked like the grizzly vacuum I had. Ran the suction tubes under the floor with gate hatch for each tool. And a remote control for the vacuum a necessity. Worked great.
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DRP
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# Posted: 10 Jun 2025 10:30pm - Edited by: DRP
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"Got me thinking wood n lost myself there."
Exactly, and please, whenever one pops into mind, that's why I started this thread. One lifetime is not enough to study the subject
The chart above not showing white oak brought a memory to mind. White oak is a real slowpoke to dry and full of pitfalls on the way. It has the widest rays, hence the arts and crafts ammonia fumed rays attraction, and the largest cross grain shear planes in that structure. Tyloses inside the cells which obstruct the vessels making them watertight and dang near impossible to dry in any kind of reasonable time... White is tight cooperage, wine and whiskey barrels, red is slack cooperage, nail and flour kegs. With the schoolkids I've split out short straws with white and red oak and then let them blow into a glass of water with each. The red will bubble, don't store liquids in a red oak barrel. The white puffs up their cheeks.
Oh, so back to the memory. It was this time of year, the humidity had not come on yet but we were quite warm and bright. Awesome drying conditions for hay. A farmer about 10 miles away had some white oak logs and brought them by to be sawed for fencing. Not knowing his schedule I sawed and stickered the boards on my trailer and over the course of the next few days finished with a load on the trailer. I hooked up and drove over to the farm. And the wood was severely checked. The warm dry air flowing over the green white oak lumber at almost 6000 feet per minute dried and shrank the shell of wood over the still wet and plump core. At every ray there was a check. I pointed it out to the farmer but happily, being fencing he was not perturbed... I was not happy with myself for the mistake, I should have tarped the load. As we unloaded and then looked at the pile, the moisture from the core had risen to the surface... that is diffusion at work. The checked surface absorbed moisture, swelled and closed the checks. By the time we were done unloading, the wood looked fine. We also knew what we saw. wood does not heal, as that wood dried later I'm sure those checks reappeared.
I've had this pointed out in a furniture company yard. Wood with short dark streaks. In those dusty yards when wood checks like that, the forklifts raising dust filters into the checks. The wood swells and closes, trapping the dirt in those checks. The gentleman that showed me that ran the planer. when he saw that he needed to plane down till that disappeared, then he knew he was below the damage.
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paulz
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# Posted: 11 Jun 2025 08:54am
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Since I found my copy of Lost in the Wilderness the other day, I have again been amazed at Proeneki’s ability with Spruce, his native tree wood up there. From building his cabin structure from scratch, with nothing but hand saws, axes and hand drills, to carving out fine items such as spoons, hinges and locks.
Spruce is not a familiar wood to me, obviously has the ability to be used as both structural lumber and fine small items.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 11 Jun 2025 10:13am
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That and ya use whatchagot.
Here in WI we have a white man history going back into the 1600's, statehood in 1848, so Lots of real 'on the frontier' living. Trees were hardwoods south, mixed forest/savanna central and pines in the north. Pre statehood we had a vibrant lumber industry suppling much of the developing country with lumber thru the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi flowage.
The pioneers used what they had to work with....Im sure those in the nort country had an easier time working with the pine but quite a few log cabins built of hardwood have lasted.
The corner work on many of those are works of joinery art.
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DRP
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# Posted: 12 Jun 2025 08:42am
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I enjoyed WI, we worked there a bunch over the years, including the neighborhood of the old portage from lakes to river, probably had a thousand Point lights and a few New Glarus specials too. If the person wanting to drink surface water was in WI, its probably safe. The other 49 choices, not so much. Y'all do protect the water.
Another good log building reference is B.A Mackie's "Notches of All Kinds". He shows a great many notches and how to layout and cut them.
Running what ya brung brings back a question I had of an old forester one time. We have hand me down Dutch cookie molds from the old country. They would press the speculaas, windmill cookies, in them. One thing that is kind of neat is the similarity on the carved patterns on most even though they span time and place. They are also carved from beech and that was my question. "Why in the world were they carving beech, I'd just as soon whittle on an anvil". The old forester noted "They had used their good timber for warships, they had to sing the praises of what was left".
Which brings the Peshtigo fire to mind, our forests have rebounded better than europe's, or have not been converted as heavily post harvest, but our population density is also catching up.
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 12 Jun 2025 10:15am
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Another WI guy here. Nothing western part. My grandparents settled there from Luxembourg. My sister now owns the farm.
The barn has a arched curved roof. The roof joists are made from 3 pieces of sandwiched 2" rough cut lumber. Beautiful. I spent a lot of time up there stacking hay. Dad helped raise the roof when he got back from WW2. Nobody else would go up that high n work.
I had a fellow call me n ask why folks didn't use a lot of AK wood for projects. Basically birch wood. I would buy a load of 6-8% ,kiln dry birch. I mentioned the birch dining table. It was 4' wide I ran the boards the 4' way. I would have to straight line a 6" board rip 2" off n straight line it again and again. Every board.
It moves quite a bit. Lots of internal pressure. Why I had to build with 2" wide boards. He asked my why it acted like this.
My theory is. Because we have long days in the summer. When they are growing the sap wood. They twist. Follow the sun like sunflowers. You can see this in the frost cracks that appear in the trees. A circular split up the tree trunk. And always going the same direction, clockwise. As a woodworker I needed to figure out how to make those natural movements controllable. Thus using a board n splitting it up. Reverse the annular growth rings and the direction of the grain. Make it work against itself. So it could make a top that would stay flat. For a lifetime and more.
We have white pine n black spruce also. Penranke probably used both. The smaller black for spindles and white for logs n lumber. White pine is beautiful to work with. Too bad that spruce beetles killed most mature recently. I had to take one down at the cabin over 225 years old.
The long straight grain from the old growth in the Tongas is something else. Clear straight grain.
When I was doing this to support my family. I went back to what I learned. The old school ways of craftsman from the Nordic region. Always using the grain against itself.
Yeah the rays in the white oak are beautiful especially when the sawer who cuts it knows what to do. Quarter saw what the tree gives you. Gotta read the wood. Get a lot of slivers that way. Become one with the wood !
I have a good friend that made a living building handrails n such from crooked wood. He would spend his days walking around in the woods collecting pieces. What a great job. I have to look at every tree in the woods. Probably why I enjoy still hunting.
In our new home I'm doing a bunch of wood stuff. Red oak in the window boxes. The walls are 10" thick for added insulation so I'm dressing them out in oak. We have red oak wood floors and kitchen cabinets. Gosh I hate buying cabinets.
Our kids have a bunch of stuff I've built. So that's nice to pass them down the ladder.
When I would built a kitchen every drawer had 3/4" solid wood drawer sides with dovetail joints. Make from whatever the face boards were. If you bought solid oak, birch, pine. Whatever it was all solid wood except the carcus I would use oak, birch, whatever to match.
It was always such a nice feeling inside when folks would come to inspect or pick up their furniture . And say with expression. Is that really mine ? I've never owned anything so beautiful.
I learned that buy reversing the grain along with the growth rings. Not only kept the wood more stable, it produces a beautiful luster. A term not used much these days. I dicribe it as making the wood look like it's dancing when you walk buy.
By using a wood scraper I could cut off the surface of the wood grains nice n clean. Think of refractions in a reflector that direct the light rays in different directions. Some would compare to Japanese planing. Also why I would use minwax stain. It has pigments and dyes. On a wood like oak with hollow grains the pigments will lodge in the open end grains making them more prominent. And the dyes will color the harder flat grains.
When I wanted to just do something different id grab a piece of dried firewood n chuck it in the lathe. Make a lamp or something. Flower vases. To burnish the wood. After you have finished sanding the spindles leave it in the lathe. And grab a handful of sawdust and with lathe turning hold your handful of sawdust to the spindle. This will melt the lignin that makes up the walls of the wood grains structure. And give you a nice shine n finish. Naturally
I had to learn a lot. I went from an enthusiastic high-school kid to a pro woodworker on 1 day when I told myself. I'm tired of a sore back all day n no brakes or family time. Told the boss. And then went home for lunch n told my beautiful wife. Went back to the heavy equipment mechanic shop n picked up my tool boxes. Same day. And on with life for the next 11 years.
Doing exactly what I wanted to do I my lifetime. Pretty blessed guy I am
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 12 Jun 2025 11:26am
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We've had several old oaks the have died off, some from lightening strikes, some from the dreaded 'oak wilt'. Eventually the outer bark has fallen and we can see the trunk twist as you mention; it is Very prominent! I speculated too that it was from following the sun.
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 13 Jun 2025 07:43am - Edited by: Aklogcabin
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The Knapp Stout logging company logged a lot of WI. I remodeled a house in northern WI. Stripped it down to the stud frame on the inside. Not easy as the studs in the walls were red oad. It was a 2 story house and the studs were full length of the exterior walls.
That house is still standing and being lived in. Must be well over 100 years old
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paulz
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2025 08:46pm
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My neighbor across the valley had a tree come down, Doug fir he says. I have just redwood and bay at my place so not used to seeing it. Do I want it for firewood? Uh, ok, brought the first load home today. Still wet but I bucked and split. Easy, about like my redwood. I hear it burns pretty well..
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DRP
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 08:04am
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What a cool splitter, never seen one. I've never burned Dougfir inside, just framing scraps on a bonfire. We have one tree my wife planted years ago, it doesn't seem to mind being on the wrong coast. One aside, when you see a plant's common name hyphenated, Douglas-fir or run together like Dougfir, it is a way of saying "this is the common name but it is not a true fir", Eastern Redcedar is another, its a juniper.
https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/factsheet/pdf/fs_psme.pdf
It was a busy week or two at work, the plumbers just passed rough in, the sparky's are close and there were a number of framing changes. I was at one point in the basement removing the old air handler and ductwork, which being bulky sheetmetal, netted $7 at the recycle yard, I removed a piece of 1x6 someone had used as a brace or shim. I was getting ready to toss it in the burn pile when I saw it was old vertical grain heartwood dougfir, beautiful stuff we rarely see anymore. The plywood in the theater was dougfir from the 50's, the look and smell of my youth. Anyway, I'm the old fart on the job so I carried the plank upstairs and passed it around to show the other guys at lunch. The youngest helper really took to it. Rather than going in the bonfire it'll become the scales for a few knives, an upcycle that made me smile.
Sometime around the mid 90's we were building a log home and the clients wanted dougfir trim, sort of in the Craftsman/Greene and Greene style (but no, I'm not that level... nice workman site made trim). I had sorted through the stacks at the nearby old time lumberyard that had a warehouse of nice lumber and asked for them to restock. Word came back, we had to wait while Bill Gates carpenter's sorted through the entire output of the west coast mills for the best for his new house. He tied up everyone for a month. Don't know the man but I had an opinion .
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paulz
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 09:30am - Edited by: paulz
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Interesting article, thanks. Didn’t know they were primarily western. Every 2x4 framing stud is made of it out here.
Yeah my big gas splitter is still down, got to get it going for the rest of this tree, but since the truck was loaded I brought it up to the cabin where this one sits. I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s handy but pumping that jack wears me out. And when the wife’s yapping gets to me, I can go outside and do busy work. The chunks under a foot I could just split with an axe.
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DRP
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 09:51am - Edited by: DRP
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It's kind of funny, I've worked out there and framed with dougfir that would be trim here. It is now grown in a number of countries.
A neighbor brought by some "cough" logs yesterday from last years storms, one that was off the ground made good lumber, the rest, well, I was trying to move them on up the road.. when the feed belt broke. Anyway, these are of pine sawyer damage to eastern white pine. The adult is a large longhorned beetle. The small cutoff of tulip poplar in the third pic has sapwood that was infested by one of the powderpost beetles for a comparison of hole sizes. I could hear the sawyers chewing in the pine logs;
https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/2907/2907-1399/2907-1399.html
Although thinking, I believe the ppb's in that poplar are from one of the "false" powderpost beetles, a deathwatch beetle, so named because on a quiet night one could heard the ticking of their chewing in the walls of a house and the stories that created.
edit; also notice that the ppb's, being starch eaters, are only munching the sapwood, they are uninterested in tree poop (heartwood). Whoops and now I'm late, gotta go meet the clients for a walk thru.
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paulz
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 10:43am - Edited by: paulz
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Log splitters again… I’m thinking trashing my old gas splitter and going electric, anyone used one? Looks like Ryobi has an Lfp one, 15 ton but it’s about $1,600. I saw another one for under a grand but looked a bit lighter. HF has one electric, only $400 but 110ac and says only 5 ton. Ac I could handle but who knows what power they are talking.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 04:07pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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DougFir is good firewood but that is relative to what other choices you have. We have mostly ponderosa pine, followed by aspen. Compared to those DougFir burns longer and generally splits better than ponderosa. DougFir seems to have less resin content. Aspen is great you want a lower heat output and quicker burn; I use some in spring-almost summer type of weather. Aspen splits into kindling nicely. DougFir is better when you want a good fir that burns longer. Ponderosa is our mainstay because it is the most common tree we have.
It has been so long since we've had hardwoods like the birch we has back home, I find it difficult to compare the birch to DF or ponderosa.
As for a splitter I still use a maul. We don't burn all that much wood at the cabin and none in the city, so I can keep up easily. We already have a years worth waiting for summer to be over.
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FishHog
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# Posted: 22 Jun 2025 06:54pm
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Pine sawyer has been hitting my pines hard in the Sudbury area of Ontario. Have one old white pine on our point that I'm quite worried about, but a lot of red pine have been killed.
As for cutting firewood, I'm still using a maul as well. I quite enjoy that workout and hope I can keep at it for a while longer. I tend to do too much at once, but hard to stop when I get started.
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DRP
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# Posted: 23 Jun 2025 06:51am
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I pounded on things for a living. After putting one or another shoulder back together the third time the doc said "quit pounding on things ". or, as a friend once said "Young men buy tools, old men buy equipment". I am behind, there is a large pile of logs and rounds to be split but I haven't started on next winter's yet. Which is way late. There is about a cord left from last winter but we burn around 3.
I bought a gas splitter a few winters ago, thinking that when it goes I'll replace the 5HP gas engine with a 3 HP electric motor which should be about equivalent. The electrics on the market, I would call kindling splitters. We are in hardwoods and they can make that splitter grunt. They labelled it a 30 ton, I kinda doubt it, let's do some math. I'm pretty sure the pump is putting out at most 3000 psi. It has a 4" hydraulic cylinder. The area of the piston head would be pi x 4" or, roundabout 12.5 square inches of area. 12.5 square inches x 3000 pounds per square inch of pressure = 37,500 lbs force... 18.75 tons. That is not to say the electric guys aren't doing creative math too .
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paulz
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# Posted: 23 Jun 2025 10:27am - Edited by: paulz
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Got my old gas splitter going yesterday, what a pita, broken hoses, broken bolts, spark plug fouling.. anyway managed to split a dozen rounds of oak my neighbor also gave me, some 2’ around. Big bang when those let go. Hard to see how an electric splitter could do that.
I use a maul up at the cabin frequently, splits my redwood no problem. Can still do from behind to over the head swings if needed, usually not. Couldn’t touch that oak though, did some of that Doug fir.
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paulz
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# Posted: 24 Jun 2025 12:18pm - Edited by: paulz
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Sheesh, now my neighbor is asking if I want some ‘buckeye’ firewood. What the heck is that?
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 24 Jun 2025 01:48pm
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A search for "buckeye tree firewood" finds that there is a california buckeye as well as an ohio buckeye. The google result states it is lousy firewood as it is very light. Makes a lot of smoke and little heat. It may be good for kindling.
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DRP
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# Posted: 24 Jun 2025 07:55pm
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I'd compare our buckeye to cottonwood. You'll freeze to death, slowly. Mercifully the pile rots before the next winter .
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DRP
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# Posted: 25 Jun 2025 07:52am - Edited by: DRP
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We called the white, ohio buckeye a horsechestnut when I was a boy. I haven't heard it called that in some time but it was also considered good luck to keep one of the nuts in your pocket. We did know even at that age that they were poisonous so an adult was in there somewhere. Anyway, not quite true but it is another common name. In this video she also mentions hazelnuts. There were a couple of plantings of them we had access to at one time. We used a tractor powered corn sheller, a little modified, to shell them, it worked pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0UlvduIlI&t=280s
Ohio Buckeye is Aesculus Glabra... glabrous in plant terms means smooth, lacking hairs.
edit;
I was pontificating to my sweetwife and she mentioned that the Ohio and red buckeye are very common planted street trees in Holland. Our mountain variety is A. flava, the largest of the natives. She has a bottlebrush buckeye planted in the front yard... that I secretly do a bit of mower battle with to keep it from spreading.
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paulz
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# Posted: 25 Jun 2025 08:03am
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Thanks guys. I told him thanks but no thanks. He’s got arborists over there, I’ll be lucky to keep up with the DF and bay coming. He’s only about 1/4 mile away but on the east side of the valley. Sure has a variety of stuff compared to my side that redwoods took over many years ago.
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paulz
Member
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# Posted: 29 Jun 2025 08:30am - Edited by: paulz
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Oh my aching back. My neighbor had arborists over last week, went over and got a pickup load of freshly dropped bay, cut into 18” pieces. Big piles of everything laying around, he’s offered to give it away on Craig’s list, I just don’t want that to happen.
Got my old splitter fired up and finished off the oak he gave me a couple weeks ago. Started on the bay, pretty tough stuff. So my question is, what splits easier, freshly cut wet wood or seasoned dry?
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