As I mentioned over in my good cheap food thread, the budget it tight. I plan to do some gardening for the farmers market next year, as well as raise some chickens + possibly pigs. I’ve been thinking of other projects I can use to make some cash, and I’ve built some birdhouses and started some adirondack chairs.
But I’d like to make stuff using the matrerials on my land so I can decrease material cost. I’m surrounded by a young forest of maple, cherry, birch, + poplar, with a few white pine/balsam fir mixed in. I have lots of scrub trees (pussywillow, chokecherry, etc.) growing around a clearing. I’ve purchased a few books on bentwood furniture, but have not been happy with the results. I’d like to try to build a log swing, But I don’t know which of the trees I have would be best.
I’m pretty well set up with tools, as I built my own house.
Does anyone know of a on-line list of wood decomposition rates?
I would look for books from Taunton Press (think that is it. Definitely “Taunton…”)
Taunton covers all things about woodworking…and you might search for ‘woodworking’ and hit some of their forums, as using fresh wood is a narrow specialty, and someone can break down how different types within each special performs.
For example, poplar might good fence material, but might have bad deflection and make a bad outdoor bench…etc.
Thanks! That’s exactly the kind of info I’m looking for. I learned by accident (halfway through building a bench), that butternut splits too easily to make outdoor log furniture. There seem to be very few books in print about building with green wood.
I have a few of Taunton’s “Build like a pro” series that I bought when I was building my house. I’ve found a few leads on Google.
Perhaps the definitive book on wood (in North America) is Understanding Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley. Well-written, well illustrated, readable and extremely thorough. Not surprisingly, it is published by Taunton Press.
If you have a wood turning lathe, making bowls out of green wood is a lot of fun. Yes, they will warp some as the wood dries out, but that’s part of the fun as the final shape is in the hands of nature.
And the standard technique for a non-warped bowl is to “rough turn” it from green wood, leaving thick walls. This dries - and warps, but without cracking. When fully dry, it is turned a second time to yield a finished, thin-walled bowl.