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I love you, man. No, really. I love you.

dkulze

dkulze

Joined
May 29, 2004
Messages
995
Likes
2
Location
billerica, ma
I guess it's way to late to be posting and I'll probably regret this in the morning.

Just looking around the forums and noticing just how frickin nice and supportive a place this is. Wanted to hand a Kudo to the moderaters and to everyone that makes this a nice community to hang out.

Thanks,
Dietrich

P.S.(if you really loved me, you'd send wood)
 
Dietrich,
No need to regret the sentiment or the posting. I have noticed the same qualities of this forum and am similarly appreciative.
 
dkulze said:
P.S.(if you really loved me, you'd send wood)
Click to expand...
Maybe FTD could branch out from just doing flowers and plants. It might not be a real big hit for Mother's Day though. Perhaps this would stand a better chance of working on Dad's Day (nothing says I love you like a crate of mesquite turning blocks).
Bill
 
One thing that is clear is that Dietrich is highly creative. I would have never thought of this angle.

But what will he do with those tons of wood under his house? If you send him wood he will just end up storing it in the house. That could cause marital woes, etc. (On the other hand, my garage isn't yet full!!!) :cool2:

...and I see I have quite a bit of typing to get caught up with Steve who still has over 54,000,000 posts.
 
Once again, Jeff, your vicious (or is that viscous?) comments cut me to the bone! Reading ulterior motives into eveything I do!

I demand an appology!

In fact, I demand reparations!

Mesquite will do fine.

Dietrich
 
dkulze said:
Once again, Jeff, your vicious (or is that viscous?) comments cut me to the bone! Reading ulterior motives into eveything I do!

I demand an appology!

In fact, I demand reparations!

Mesquite will do fine.

Dietrich
Click to expand...

Will do, D, just send me a PM with your address since you're not listed in the Resource Directory(????)

Just picked up a fresh bag at the borg, so you're welcome to a few of the big pieces; they don't smoke as well anyway.

BTW, got some nice hickory too, if you'd like a piece.

😀

M
 
Flowers for D

Well, it's not exactly the same thing as flowers, but I have plenty of mesquite "flour" (thanks to the borers) that I can sweep up and send to you. I think that if you mix it with glue that it could be used to make "MMDF" (mesquite medium density fiberboard) turning blanks -- the ultimate in segmented turning.

Hmmmmm ......... marketing idea: mix mesquite "flour" with powdered resin glue. Put it in a plastic bag and label it as an "Instant Turning Blank Kit - Just Add Water". Advantage is that you can make the blank to the dimensions that you want and no voids to worry about. Grain isn't as showy as regular mesquite.

Bill
 
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Bill beat me to it. I had already swept up some nice mesquite chips and shavings off the floor since you didn't specify how big you wanted it!!! 😀

In all honesty I still have some mesquite cutoffs that I haven't yet decided to toss. Most of them are corners that were sawed off of bowl blanks. And most of them are pretty small. For other species these have just gone to the burn pile. Am I a wood hoarder? Ok, let me put it another way, am I a waste collector? Have any of you guys found any use for little cutoffs like this?
 
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Jeff Jilg said:
Am I a wood hoarder? Ok, let me put it another way, am I a waste collector? Have any of you guys found any use for little cutoffs like this?
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I used to save ALL of the exotic cutoffs, now I cut them up into pen blanks and sell them at the symposiums. The domestic stuff, if it is too small for even a pen blank, pitch it.

Oh, and that woodhoarder question, yes you are.
 
Team player

dkulze said:
Once again, Jeff, your vicious (or is that viscous?) comments cut me to the bone! Reading ulterior motives into eveything I do!

I demand an appology!

In fact, I demand reparations!

Mesquite will do fine.

Dietrich
Click to expand...
Dietrich-I'll be in West Mass (35 mi north of Mass Pike at Springfield) May 26 for the next week. I can help the whole association you, and Jeff by ridding you of your burden of helping a fellow member (Jeff) by relieving him of his guilt of just throwing away that mesquite-Such a waste.
Always willing to help, 😀 Gretch
 
Hell, Gretch. Come on by. I'm sure I can load you down with some stuff.

My plans for this next week include:

-tomorrow, I take my chainsaw to work with me and, after work, I offered to take down an ornamental cherry in a complete stranger's yard. Hope it isn't all rotten.

-Saturday, I drive 90 minutes to my cousin's in central mass and help him cut up a bunch of trees on his property. A truckload of cherry and maple burls comes with this task

-Next Wed, I drop by the local tree lot where they set one aside for me. It's a cherry that's close to 4' at the bottom and apparently has a number of burls on it that are around 2' or so. My friend with the 36" bar on his saw will be dropping by to help with that one.

-Today, I walked the dog past a neighbor who cut down a pretty large apple. My wife is so proud of me for not stopping and asking for any.

heh, heh.

Dietrich
 
dkulze said:
-Today, I walked the dog past a neighbor who cut down a pretty large apple. My wife is so proud of me for not stopping and asking for any.

heh, heh.

Dietrich
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Dietrich - is there a typo in the last bullet??? How can you pass that up?? Did you mean to type "...and asking for any yet."
:cool2:
 
dkulze said:
-tomorrow, I take my chainsaw to work with me and, after work, I offered to take down an ornamental cherry in a complete stranger's yard. Hope it isn't all rotten.

Dietrich
Click to expand...

So out of curiousity, does this total stranger know you are taking down his tree or are you going to try to do it before they get home? :cool2:
 
woodwish said:
So out of curiousity, does this total stranger know you are taking down his tree or are you going to try to do it before they get home? :cool2:
Click to expand...


Yup. The burl raids occur after midnight only.

Dietrich
 
The biggest apple trees in the US are in S. New Hampshire. This piece was about 15 miles south of the border. Could have come from the same orchard. Trunk was approx 3x3x4. Had to put it in with a cherry picker and got it out by tying it to a tree and driving away. (yes, the tailgate was down). About 1/3 of the diameter is rotten at the bottom but still alot of wood.

Dietrich
 
Tomorrow, I am afraid I will be "falling off the wagon" despite the self imposed rule of no more wood. We had 60-80 mph winds in some parts of Austin last night. There is a 24" dia pecan tree with my name on it just waiting.

As is typical in these types of storms the tree trimmers are swamped. They will come and cut the tree now, but won't pick it up until later. The pecan in question had fallen into a house. So the tree guys were there to clear the house for repair. Some other downs trees include oaks, hackberry, chinaberry, etc.

It is already May and I have not even touched the chainsaw yet.
 
Jeff Jilg said:
It is already May and I have not even touched the chainsaw yet.
Click to expand...

"Oh, Jeffereeee, I'm wayyyy-ting." "Lover, all I ever need is a sip of fresh gas and a little Oil of Ole'! to be ready to party." "Aw, Jeffy, you hardly ever call, lately. Was it something I said? I'll bet it was that silly live oak thing, right? Baby, you know I don't run well in the dark!" "Jeff?, Mister Jilg?"


YO! JEFF! YOUR CHAINSAW, SHE BE CALLIN' YOU, MAN!
 
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Tomorrow them chips will be flyin'. It's all Dietrich's fault. Here I was all focused and everything on making finished pieces, and then he posts that humongous chunk of apple wood. What's a guy to do???
 
Dietrich,

I thought you were trying to get RID of your wood, not collect even more!!

Are you sure SWMBO knows about your plans?

You may soon find your burls AND your clothes out in the middle of Rte. 3.

I am always available to lighten your load 😀

BH
 
dkulze said:
I'll post the truckload of burls tomorrow, Jeff. That should really screw you up.

dietrich 😛
Click to expand...

Guys,

I'm gettin' a little concerned here. We've got a couple of members with a raging "substance dependency", and kidding aside, this is starting to get nasty. Long-distance infliction of mental distress via posting pictures of the victim's objects of passion held just out of reach could lead to drastic measures. Jilg's got a talking chainsaw, and Kulze has this trailerfull of dead tree cancers that he drags around behind his Yugo. I feel this will NOT end well, folks.

I propose we take this thing down a notch or two. For a start, no posting of pictures of one's wood stash. That way we can all remain in denile and put down all these gloats to the lunatic ramblings of a tortured soul who probably is limited to gluing up old SYP Pressure treated 2x4 scrap for turning stock.
 
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We probably need to heed Mike S.'s post from awhile ago. He had basically collected so much wood that it mostly rotted before he could get to it. At least Dietrich and I are lucky enough to store it in our spare bedrooms. 🙄

And this next round is also partly SWMBO's fault. I wasn't even looking for wood and she called me at work today. I wasn't at my desk so she called my mgr to see if I could be found "before they cut it into little pieces". What does it mean when you have pulled the people around you into the frenzy? Will I start seeing little piles of wood start to collect in my neighbor's driveways? 😱

(adding this) She wanted to go see the Pecan tree today. The remnants covered the whole yard. It was a pecan tree about 120-150 years old. The pith inside near the base was hollow up to about 6 feet. I'll measure it tomorrow. We literally saw one of the workers crawling into the tree trunk (which was sideways) reaching to get something. It's kind of too bad when a tree like this is taken down, but it was an unhealthy tree. It was growing when Austin probably only had a few thousand people here.
 
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That pecan sounds pretty amazing, Jeff. Hope this burl pick holds up to it.
 

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That is a classic pic Dietrich - you just made my day.

I'm processing about 1,000 pounds of the pecan. Such a pretty wood with a dark central heartwood and lighter sapwood. One piece is a crotch. The tree had a lot of rot thru most of the trunk.
 
Jeff Jilg said:
And this next round is also partly SWMBO's fault. I wasn't even looking for wood and she called me at work today. I wasn't at my desk so she called my mgr to see if I could be found "before they cut it into little pieces". What does it mean when you have pulled the people around you into the frenzy? Will I start seeing little piles of wood start to collect in my neighbor's driveways? 😱
Click to expand...
This situation has progressed way too far when Jeff starts doin' wood on the job and it is time for me and Steve W. to make an emergency trip down to Austin to help Jeff through this difficult time and I plan to take my truck to get this stuff out of his sight. And it seems that his friends and family have even been dragged into this obsession. Blaming' SWMBO -- oh, the shame! We can't just sit idly by while his life spins out of control. Word on the street is that he's even using a skew to "do" the inside of bowls.

Bill
 
OK, Jeff, this one's for you . . . . . . . . .

​
Hope you get better real soon, bud . . . . .:cool2:


Turning Against the Wind


Was it just yesterday
Or was it long ago
Powermatic was lovely it was the lathe of my dreams
There in the wood shop with the stebcenter running slow
And the gouges that I used
The piles of wood that I turned
Caught like a wild man out of control
'Til there was nothing left to turn and no room more for bowls
And I remember what I said to myself
How I swore that it never would end
I remember how I held the skew so tight
Wish I had known more of what I didn't know then

Against the wind
I was turnin' against the wind
Sucked into the vortex, I was turnin'
Against the wind

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself turnin’ more
Surrounded by more tools I thought would help me turn
I found myself further and further from my home
Searching for more wood to turn
There were oh so many bowls
I was living to turn and turning to live
I was worried about paying and more how much I owed

Turning eight spindles a minute for hours at a time
Breaking all of the bowls that would break
I began to find myself searching
Shopping for gouges again and again

Against the wind
I was still turning against the wind
Found myself shoppin’ for a lathe against the wind

Well those learning days are past me now
I've got more spindles to think about
Deadlines and commitments
Coves to leave in, beads to leave out

Against the wind
I'm still sandin' against the wind
I'm older now but still sandin' against the wind
Well I'm older now and still sandin'
Against the wind
Against the wind
Against the wind

Still turnin’
I'm still turnin’ against the wind
I'm still sandin’
I'm still sandin’ against the wind
Still turnin’
Turnin’ against the wind
Sandin’ against the wind
See the dang fool turn
Watch the dang fool turn
Watch the dang fool sandin’
He'll be sandin’ against the wind
Let the old guy turn
Let the old guy turn
He'll be sandin' against the wind
Against the wind ...
 
burl

i have neber done a burl before, can you do one that small, there was another post about a king kong of burls, but that was in the other dimemsion
 
Great "song", Boehme

Sure shows the vertigo from the vortex!!! BTY, I "fell off the wagon" yesterday-again. Visiting a 94 yr old friend and on the way home line crew doing tree maintenance. I pulled over to 3 areas of wood. Oak mostly, but another gnarley tree-leaves just appearing. White wood and a piece with branches, just right size for stealing, and has red in it!!! The box elder has been chain sawed for small natural edged bowls. This am??? Nice red in it. Made my day 😀 Gretch
 
Great Seger turning song Bill ! SWMBO is on alert for any unusual hardwood, and good pecans don't get cut that often.

It's too bad you and Steve didn't have the weekend clear. I only heard about the pecan on Friday, and yesterday afternoon it was all gone. 5 guys working over 2 days.

There were at least 3 more pickup loads worth. But those guys work fast. They chipped it up and took it to the Austin mulch recycler.
 
All I can say, Bo, is classic. Just classic. Gonna take it to my next club meeting and sing it.

Here's the rest.
 

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Thanks for the laughs guys. That first burl Pic was hilarious. And the song re-write was great too. The "intervention" theme is all but gospel truth...

Yup this stuff is addictive. We've all got our eyes trained to spot downed trees anywhere, and primed ourselves to check our chainsaws for readiness. (

Truthfully, I have only just gottan an old one that I don't know if it runs or not. Just have to go up to the shop and tinker with it awhile... But when I get it running there's a lot of wood I can think of that's not safe where it lies....
 
It's been a fun thread, Bill.

On a down note, out of about 4-500lbs of burls in the back of the truck, I'll probably be lucky to get 100lbs of usable burl, and alot of that will be bottle stopper stock. Most of these were on trees that were standing dead for anywhere from a few years to 10-20 so they contain lots, and I mean lots of rot. Even the ones on living trees tend to have rotted out centers. I'll get some nice stuff if the burls extend to close to center but don't have many that are pristine.

And Charlie, yes, you can turn something that small. I'm limited only by what the pin jaws on my chuck will hold and by the grain of the wood. I've turned working tops that are well under 1/8 inch in diameter.

Dietrich
 
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