wood mocking me

[Jeff Jilg]

The agony of it all. Each day this week a fresh cut oak wood pile has been mocking me. It sits there on my way to work and on my way home, just daring me to take a piece.

Or maybe it is calling me like a siren's song - "please take me before they haul me to the mulcher!"

The pile has become shorter. A few of the small pieces have been scavenged for firewood. Today I did a slow driveby/scouting mission just thinking "If I only take one piece it will hardly take up too much space in the garage (I mean studio)". The same garage that has no floorspace left. But it's kinda like a box of chocolates. You can't just take one and ignore the others. There is a nice bent piece there which could easily become a few bowls or boxes.

And the worst of it is.....this is spring! More woodpiles will be appearing as the tree trimmers make their relentless assault into our neighborhood. The temptation is great, yet so far I still have a full garage.

 

[arbud]

It's a pity...

 

[Bill Boehme]

Word . . . . .

Be careful, Jeff -- it could be a "sting" to catch "woodies". Somebody probably already has noted your slow "drive-bys". Word is that they don't look too favorably on turnaholics "doin' wood" in Austin.

 

[Mark Mandell]

Be careful, Jeff -- it could be a "sting" to catch "woodies". Somebody probably already has noted your slow "drive-bys". Word is that they don't look too favorably on turnaholics "doin' wood" in Austin.

Time for a bit of Midnight Requisitioning. . . . o/k/a the Texas 5-Finger Discount

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Oh it's definitely free wood. The rest of the tree trimmings are there and we have "large brush pickup" scheduled in a week or so. That's what makes it so inviting....and frustrating. Heck I haven't even run the chainsaw in about 3 months. Missin out on all the fun!

 

[Randy Rice]

Wood Withdrawal

We need to collaborate in developing a seven-step program to help Jeff through this difficult time.

The first item of business is to get him a turnin' buddy -- any volunteers?

Next come the steps:

1. Hide the chainsaw.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

 

[jimwtolly]

GO FOR the OAK

Jeff, just GO FOR THE OAK !!!!

 

[john lucas]

Jeff I don't have any time to rough turn so I wasted more valuable turning time yesterday. I have some friends who had thier property logged. They left a huge mess of tree tops limbs etc. I spent the day helping them cut up some of that stuff. I should say they live on the side of a very steep mountain. I am extremely tired after cutting and hauling wood all day. Any way I now have a buch of cherry and walnut that is sitting in the driveway waiting for me to rough turn it. I have other projects that have to get done first so I hope this stuff lasts a while.

 

[Gretch Flo]

step 2

Randy-I propose step 2 be "rent an arsonist" Gretch

 

[Max Taylor]

wood is mocking me

Add to list: This is to replace wood that is no longer usable in my pile.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Two good ideas there - the arsonist would definitely clear out the garage leaving more room for new wood! And the other point is a good one - unusable wood. For some reason it seems to be difficult to cull out the unusable stuff. Someone gave me some spalted maple a few years ago. It's big and it has lots of color. It is also about as soft as balsa wood from degrading to a very punky state. It's not clear that wood will ever get used but it takes up some big space.

I might drive by that oak today and give it another look. John has the best approach. Get some good exercise and harvest some premier wood while achieving a beneficial land clearing objective. Probably some good cherry in that haul.

 

[john lucas]

Jeff I know what to do. You start a pile and then just continue the pile around the shop. As the first section goes bad just pore some more compost material on it and turn it into soil. Eventually you will have an earthen mound around the shop and in 10,000 years some archeologist will dig it up and think that it was some sort of religious ceremonial place. Of course we all know that it is a religion.

 

[Ed Koenig]

Lumpy bumpy burly tree!

Jeff,
Every Saturday morning on the way to breakfast with my wife, we pass this huge live tree (Maple) that is covered with lumps and bumps and burls. For years I've wanted to ask the owners if they ever considered cutting it down because it is (I haven't figured out the rest yet). Or maybe a storm will damage it. Every week I fear I'll drive by and it will be gone.

I think I'm a sick individual. I am constantly looking for burl covered trees as I drive here and there. My wife is always yelling at me to watch the road. Do you also have this problem Jeff? Does anyone else out there have this problem? I sure hope so.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Do I have that problem??? Heck - I can't remember when I didn't have that problem. We don't see many burls here, but there is one oak tree in the neighborhood with a big one hanging off of it. If I'm lucky....

And John's right about religion. It feels spiritual to take a piece of wood then eventually do something neat with it. At some point I'll pass on (hopefully in a whole bunch more years)....and someone is going to look at my garage and know that I had it bad. If by some chance a volcano goes off and covers the garage they will be digging it out in 2000 years and wondering if everyone did woodturning, and "what crude tools they used in the olden days".

Theresa and I drove by the wood pile today. She agreed in advance to help me find a spot in the garage for a few pieces. But horrors! The guy had cut the pieces into 6" long chunks so that more pieces would "disappear". It was no big loss though - all the pieces had a big centers of punky rot in them.

So to turn it into a productive day I finished buffing about 10 pieces (rouge, then white, then carnauba wax). Time to get a photo setup done so I can take some pics.

 

[Gretch Flo]

dream shattered

Jeff-How terrible to see that "beautiful" wood all cut up and unusable, but must be a relief that you don't have to drool everyday going by it, and take pepsid ( or like me, the purple pill) wondering where you were going to put it. Gretch

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Thanks for the consolation Gretch. It always just seems like a waste to see a good tree go to the mulchers. At least they don't put them in the dump here. At the least, some of these trees could even get sawed up into boards for flatwork.

I got some free mesquite last year from a guy who basically works at a company that clears and mulches. It is good they reuse the material. I asked him why they didn't saw some of it into lumber. They tried that once and found it wasn't profitable for the amount of time it took. Their primary pay comes from clearing and for houses, roads, and buildings. They basically level it out for the construction that follows. The mesquite he gave me was from the San Antonio area. They had cleared about 1.5-2.0 square miles for a new Toyota plant. 99% of the trees including mesquite got mulched.

 

[Chuck Wood]

OK then: we have step 2 covered then and that's "admitting you have a problem." Go grab a couple of chunks already will you? And don't tell anyone including your turning buddy!!

 

[Jeff Jilg]

I still like the caveat that Dustpan provided - "this is replacement wood for wood that went bad in my existing piles!" That one might even work on Theresa the next time she sees me coming home with some wood.

I wonder if we need to activate the 7 step program at the symposium and have people stand up in front and admit their wood collecting problems kinda like AAA.

 

[Gretch Flo]

wood addiction

Hi, my name is Gretch. I am a woodholic Gretch

 

[Mark Mandell]

What Works

I still like the caveat that Dustpan provided - "this is replacement wood for wood that went bad in my existing piles!" That one might even work on Theresa the next time she sees me coming home with some wood.

'Long as you don't rolleyes at "These shoes go with my mauve outfit much better," you might have a chance. But if you show a little enthusiasm about them (without overdoing it), you'll increase your odds.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I wonder if we need to activate the 7 step program at the symposium and have people stand up in front and admit their wood collecting problems kinda like AA.

[font=&quot]

[/font][font=&quot]Should this be part of the General Session (since we all have the "condition", even if we don't acknowledge it) or should it be only for those who are ready to deal with their obsession (in the second case, it could be held in the vendor hall – don’t ask me why).

I'll start off --
Hi, my name is Bill and I do wood. I started out just doing spindles for flatwork projects and told myself that I could quit whenever I wanted to. I didn’t ever intend to “do bowlsâ€Â, but I figured, “what the heck, I’ll just do one or two -- what can it hurtâ€Â. OK, I’ve done a few more, but it isn’t hurting anybody else. Well, OK, maybe it’s hurting the wife – she says that every flat surface in the house is covered with my “stuff†and that I need to cut back. During SWAT at Wichita Falls last year, Dustpan (Max) and I saw a tree that had a huge burl just a few feet from where we were staying in an RV park. We were thinking of ways that we might be able to surgically remove the unsightly burl from the tree. OK, I know that it is wrong, but I was wishing that I had been packing Stihl with me. We think that we came up with a good story for the RV park operator -- that poor tree was severely diseased with ??????, and all of the other surrounding trees were in grave danger of dying unless we helped them by removing the dreadful diseased tissue. And -- since we were so concerned about this dreadful situation, we would be willing to do it for free in the name of wood-kind. We even began to believe the story ourselves and were even beginning to take great pride in our altruistic motives. Now, I know that I must take full responsibility for my “condition†and am not trying to implicate Dustpan in this situation in any way, even if he does own three lathes and a small mountain of wood.

Bill
[/font]

 

[Mark Mandell]

[font=&quot]

[/font][font=&quot]Should this be part of the General Session (since we all have the "condition", even if we don't acknowledge it) or should it be only for those who are ready to deal with their obsession (in the second case, it could be held in the vendor hall – don’t ask me why).

I'll start off --
Hi, my name is Bill and I do wood. I started out just doing spindles for flatwork projects and told myself that I could quit whenever I wanted to. I didn’t ever intend to “do bowlsâ€Â, but I figured, “what the heck, I’ll just do one or two -- what can it hurtâ€Â. OK, I’ve done a few more, but it isn’t hurting anybody else. Well, OK, maybe it’s hurting the wife – she says that every flat surface in the house is covered with my “stuff†and that I need to cut back. During SWAT at Wichita Falls last year, Dustpan (Max) and I saw a tree that had a huge burl just a few feet from where we were staying in an RV park. We were thinking of ways that we might be able to surgically remove the unsightly burl from the tree. OK, I know that it is wrong, but I was wishing that I had been packing Stihl with me. We think that we came up with a good story for the RV park operator -- that poor tree was severely diseased with ??????, and all of the other surrounding trees were in grave danger of dying unless we helped them by removing the dreadful diseased tissue. And -- since we were so concerned about this dreadful situation, we would be willing to do it for free in the name of wood-kind. We even began to believe the story ourselves and were even beginning to take great pride in our altruistic motives. Now, I know that I must take full responsibility for my “condition†and am not trying to implicate Dustpan in this situation in any way, even if he does own three lathes and a small mountain of wood.

Bill
[/font]

Thanks SO much for sharing . . . .

I, however, don't have a problem.

I see the wood.

I get the wood.

I turn the wood.

No Problem.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Hi my name is Jeff and I am addicted....

I see bowls (not ghosts). I see them in trees and they are waiting to come out. It all started about 100 years ago when I was high school and my dad made some cabinets. They looked pretty cool but it was obvious that the wood wanted to be round. I tried making flat stuff but then I got distracted by the vagaries of life.

Then I got lucky. Somehow I ended up in Northern California at college. Surrounded by huge trees and forests that went on forever it was like utopia. Wood was everywhere. Even the Victorian house we rented for college had gobs of redwood in it. (The studs were 12" apart.) But the closeted desire to find the bowl in the tree waited even more years.

Then somehow I ended up in Texas - the Hill Country no less. Then I found the AAW. Pretty neat website with lots of neat pictures and a cool magazine. Then I went to the Pasadena (2003) symposium. Holy smokes - there were other people addicted just like me, and they were doing all sorts of things with wood. What an awesome Instant Gallery. None of the pieces were flat and there were lots of different techniques which could be developed. There were lots of experts giving demos and they all wanted to help.

Well....if you call it "help". They were basically enabling an addiction. They were throwing fuel on the flames. They admired all things about wood and they were conspiring to create more converts. If you get to this point it is usually too late. You will never drive by a freshly felled tree without looking at it twice.

It rarely goes away....this desire to create wood art. Once you see and feel the bowl or vase taking shape it pulls you in. You end up thinking about the next piece and how you can do better. You get attracted to different kinds of wood and how it can get molded into something that someone will have for a lifetime. It never ends.

My name is Jeff and I am addicted.....

 

[dkulze]

Hi I'm Dietrich and I don't have a problem.

Now my wife, she's got a problem. She's not completely crazy about the several tons of wood I have stored around the basement and under our bedroom.

I know the location of every large tree with burls on any route I've driven more than once in the past 3 years. (this includes 5 large maples, 3 huge willows, 2 large cherries, and a dozen or so indeterminate trees).

I've actually mapquested and scouted out burled trees on foot by the side of the interstate.

I established a good friendship with the wife of the owner of a log lot near my home, and have now filled their house with bowls and vases, earning me open access with a chainsaw to their 6 acre log storage and processing lot.

I don't need help. I'm fine with all of this. I'm thinking of starting a business selling wood on Ebay, in fact. It's all good.

Dietrich.

P.S.(help)

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Several tons????? That's great!!!

Well at least it didn't make it into the house yet. SWMBO won't let me bring in unfinished wood (yet).

So...now we know your secret for how you'll be storing future wood. Sounds like a sweet deal!

 

[Gretch Flo]

addiction-I fell off the wagon

Hi-my name is Gretch, I am still a woodaholic. I "swore" I wouldn't bring in more wood til I recouped some space. I have 2 storage "barns"-10x16', One filled (used to be hay for horses) with cherry planks, and turning wood. The other storage shed is for ladders and lawn hoses, etc. It is filled to the brim with 95% wood. My basement in the turning "laboratory" is cluttered with cut offs, wood made round waiting to dry a little, and I am tripping over it. Another part of the basement has wood waiting for me to grab, along with storing finished products in about 15 55 gal plastic storage containers.
But, but, but yesterday I went to a birthday party for our aerobics clan and on the way I kept seeing road crew trimmings. I got an urge. I was passing by the road where a vet has some more red box elder waiting for me.
Well, with the price of gas and all, maybe I'll drop by on my way home just for one small piece, just one and that's all-after all I was dressed up and couldn't get dirty so I was safe..
But, but, The wildlife vet was home and had also had saved me two spalted maple crotches, and oh-did he really need that pretty ash with lots of color for the fireplace? So in the minivan goes 4 lg 20" pieces and 3 split box elder that he quit splitting, thinking it'd be good for me. HE loaded into the car for me.
I have a problem Gretch

 

[Jeff Jilg]

It's hard to pass up all that good stuff. It must get in our veins, and if we pass it up we need more to keep up the levels.

Isn't that how it always happens? You see one or two pieces and end up with a small truckload? And you say to yourself, I'll only take up this much floorspace and I can still walk around it. Then next time you say the same thing. Pretty soon, you can't remember if there was ever a floor.

 

[Myrel Willeford]

I do not Have a problem

I don’t have a problem, I don’t. :cool2: I only have a small wood pile on the side of the garage; well there are a few logs under the tree spalting. Oh yah there are those logs I rescued from the construction site a few weeks ago in a pile on the driveway. See I don’t have a problem!
There is this pile of wood on the way home from work stacked neatly against a wall too large for fire wood. It is in front of a business they don’t have a wood stove. I think I will stop by and ask if I can have a piece or two three at most. I think I will drive my truck to work today I could put the two or three pieces in my car but it would get it dirty, some of the bank might fall off and mix with the other bark all over the carpet which I really need to clean some day. Well it is still there on the way in some could be left when I get off work today. On the way home I just happened to drive by and there was this sign it said free wood I had to stop, I just had to. I figured I would get two pieces well maybe three. Well I started loading the two pieces into the truck and some one saw me and came over to help. I thought it would be rude to refuse the help. The next thing I know the truck is full and I can’t shut the tail gate. Restack and it closes now. The sign free wood is gone along with the pile. The wife calls while I drive home and I say guess what I got some free wood there was this pile with a sign that said…. She said “You are lucky you took the truck today†Well….. I say.

No problem, See this is all the wood I need for a long time…... There is the maple tree which appears to be covered with burls from the ground to about 15 feet I do drive by often. There are a few olive logs near work looks like they are thinning the trees, I wonder…..

Help I need help or a larger shop.

 

[Sean Troy]

I can quit any time I want !

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Those words are the first signs of denial! We need to have a program to sign up those identified with a problem!

 

[Randy Rice]

Sign-Up List

Jeff, I thought you were already maintaining a list of those of us needing intervention.
http://www.woodturner.org/vbforum/memberlist.php?

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Randy - you are spot on with that observation! But there are a few novices that we haven't reeled in just yet. :cool2:

 

[dkulze]

Since my problem is well under control, I wanted to offer up my services as a sponsor to anyone who's trying to address their woodaholism. Step one is to ship it all to me so that it can't tempt you anymore.

Dietrich
(no one saw this coming, did they?)

P.S.(if you stack it in the basement so tight that air can't get around it, is it still a fire hazard?)

 

[Jeff Jilg]

That is a good storage strategy Dietrich....store it so close together that you effectively remove all the oxygen. We'll have to publish that as a new tip in the next issue!!

 

[Bill Boehme]

............no one saw this coming, did they?

It's not like I didn't know that it was "out there", but I figured that I was safe because there weren't any "woodies" in the 'hood.

Bill

p.s. Carpal Tunnel really isn't too bad a price to pay for the wood high -- I don't have a problem with it -- I just duct tape the tools to my hands.

 

[dkulze]

Nah, Bill. When it gets bad enough and they have to surgically remove my hands at the wrists, I'm just gonna get prosthetic gouges. Kinda like Edward Bowlgougehands.

Dietrich