Just a note for anyone considering breaking down a piano - be sure that the first thing you do is to completely release the tension on the wires. They are under A LOT of tension (which is why the harp is still made from cast iron to this day). Also, Paul Sellers shows how to use piano wire to make a marking gauge.
I once stopped the car in the middle of the road (safely) and picked up a piece of wood and my wife rolled her eyes, 2 years later, I made two beautiful pictures frames for her cross stitched Owls. It pays sometimes.
i felt bad several time picking in construction ward bin, or lumber yard trash pile... and then i start sympathise with the guys, they often keep me a good peace or try not to be too picky because they know i come by, that we will have a good chat and i ll show them what i did with it ... most of these people are glad that we are keeping the craft alive!
Dissembling free antique pianos is another great source. Provided you have the space and ability to move it. Make sure it’s old and actually made of good stuff. Piano harps make fun garden art.
Huge haul of hardwood, fasteners brass hardware, etc. from the klunker piano in my living room. Ivory from the keys can be legally upcycled but not resold by the owner for crafts. Harp is great but a pain come moving day but breaks up easily with a hand sledge.
Here in Oregon, it varies by region/county, but firewood permits exist and costs can range from *nothing* (UDSA Forest Service, 6 cords personal limit) to a nominal fee that's locally administered (generally around 20 bucks and the number of cords vary). Usually you are okay with gathering anything downed on or within 100 feet of service roads, but you get several tags for your loads so you can simply just take big log chunks and split them at home (or in this case, cherry pick the ones you think might be interesting and home/hand mill them). Then again, mill ends, leftovers, and slabs are pretty inexpensive here (at least the smaller ones are - huge ones are still a premium) so maybe that's why most people use the firewood permits for firewood. But you could mill it if you wanted to, and it can be as free as the fuel/time/work to get it.
Just chucking in another potential source for scraps I'm a technician at a construction college in the midlands, UK, We order in LOTS of Swedish redwood for the students as they're main learning material, So end up binning nearly everything in the end......I know, criminal. I try and save, reuse, give away, take for myself. But friends do ask if we have bits and bobs here that they could use for projects and me and staff are generally pretty happy to help At the end of the academic year July/ August we have a huge clear out to get ready for the new, they're are always decent useable lengths going out of student projects. So what I'm saying is, its worth hitting up these places, they may be able to help you out with bits, even if it's just firewood. Hope this helps
I just got a free car trunk full of cherry for checking Kleinanzeigen (basically Germany's craigslist) and it would have been a truckload if I had have a truck.^^ You can get free lumber here too.
Cabinet shops in my area seen played out. Many are bundling their hardwood scraps and selling them on FB. Two "hidden" ones I've been using with fair success: 1) moving companies (mayflower, road runner, etc). If you've got one of their big depots or warehouses near you check with them. They often have a big pile near their dumpsters of furniture that has been broken or damaged. You can get lots of good wood out of a bed frame. Also they'll often sell their used big storage "vaults" - these are big boxes that people pack furniture in which are then loaded into the trucks (think "pods", but smaller. They are made out of plywoods (of different thicknesses) and 1x4 and 2x4s. Often they are beat to death with lots of staples, etc. But they can be used for projects where that's not visible (like shed walls under the siding, etc). Second, and I've yet to see others mention it: museums and art galleries. They'll get statues, displays, etc shipped into them in big crates. And they often have to get rid of the crates, sometimes having to pay to get them hauled off. Made of dimensional lumber and plywood, and often in good condition with a huge "fragile" stamped on them.
Great list! Road side furniture is indeed a great source!! I also ended up making a beautiful mallet with some of it. It had some of the sexiest chatoyance I've ever worked with in a piece of maple. Its so nice I almost feel bad using it for its intended purpose.. lol. If you're going to be doing this a lot though, make sure to invest in a metal detector to find hidden nails! Sometimes you'll find stuff put together with mortice and tenons and no nails, those are easy, but often theres hidden screws, big nails, brad nails, pin nails, etc, all which aren't fun to find with your planer, hand plane, saw, etc. Salvaged wood is cheap, but planer blades aren't, so the one time purchase of a metal detector, even a cheap one under $50, could and will likely save you more on your first salvage job than the cost of the planer blades.. Just scan your wood quickly and cut around or extract the nails before you ruin saw blades or put a nice dent in planer blades or almost as bad, put a knick in your meticulously sharpened hand tool blades. This also applies to logs too... The logs could come from trees people have had on their property for generations where you can imagine, there's a thousand reasons someone could have used a nail/screw/bolt in that tree and it could have grown over so you wouldn't see it. You can find those easily at your wood craft supply store, amazon, or rockler and lee valley both carry the Little Wizard II which appears to get pretty good reviews for around $40. @WoodByWright2 that might be a useful one to add to your tool recommendation list, unless you recommend something else.
Last fall I had a guy stop at my house one afternoon and ask me if I wanted some walnut he had just cut down. Even broke down the larger pieces, and helped me haul it up the driveway. Very lucky for once!
I have made a great deal of furniture out of pallet wood. When I moved into my new home, in a new development, I set up my workshop with a lot of dumpster diving including the dumpster across from my new home. Great video!
That's a FANTASTIC Video! I'm glad that i have my own Forrest so everytime a Tree died or i cut dead Branches i have Lumber for free. Mostly Rowanberry, Cherry and Oak. But it is a lot of Work to Fell, Cut or Split, Storage and plane them but also a lot of Fun. Maybe i will build myself a very big Tablesaw to saw big logs, I already have a 70 cm Sawblade, Bearrings and a two stroke Engine from an old Generator.. only thing is i have to find just another place for storage my Wood 😄
Kiln samples. Larger sawmills with several kilns have loads of wide, 4/4 or thicker lumber in 2-3’ lengths that are used to verify MC before shutting down the charge. They’ll be rough sawn, dry, sealed at the end grain, and free. Perfect for drawer faces and smaller projects.
A couple of years ago, I happened to look at Craigslist and found someone local selling a stack of ash that he had left over from a big project. I bought the whole thing for about $350. It included about 20 boards, each 4/4 or 5/4 and anywhere from 4 to 10 feet long. I think it came out to something $3 per board foot. I wasn't sure what I would build with it, but it was too good a deal to pass up. I'm now planning to build a large Japanese toolbox for my new Lie-Nielsen hand planes and that ash looks perfect for the project. I know it will be heavy, but I don't plan to move it around; I just want a safe place to store my planes and keep them dry in Florida humidity. I'll throw a couple of gun safe silica gel packs in it with the planes.
When I renovated a 1970's house for dad, I carefully demolished a bespoke Tassie oak kitchen (5 years ago), I've only recently exhausted that treasure trove of mature wood. Possibly 2 centuries of growth, then use, and now reuse. This was way back when wall framing used oak, the floors were oak, the cupboards were oak, everything was beautiful hardwood of a near-perfect quality.
I second using old furniture. You have no idea how much walnut I've found that was veneered, and when rain popped it off when it was tossed along the road, the owner almost begged me to take it away. I sometimes get wood FOR FREE from people selling me something else. I bought a 10 inch worm-drive saw, and the seller GAVE me a beautiful dry while oak plank, full dimension 2x14xfive feet long. Another gave me a chunk of IPE almost twice that length....damned near got a hernia putting it on the luggage rack of my Subaru. And tree fellers/arborists....the amount of brilliant straight and clear white pine I've found for free is wonderful.
OH, and one more thing...some towns have a program for FREE wood from trees that municipalities take down, and reserve the wood for townies ONLY. See if your town has such a program.
Oh, and a THIRD source...shipping companies. There is a yard not 15 miles from me FULL of crates (think cheap ply for tooling), crate closure hardware (like used on high-end shipping for inspections purposes), things of that sort. I once got almost 300 board feet of white oak from a Harley dealership dumpster, along with ratchet straps, bikes had been shipped in/with them. Dealers now use steel crates they ship back, but I've made a large number of mallets with Harley handles.
Construction sites are a great source for endless lumber, if all you need is pine 2x4s and 2x6s. Especially if they’ve just finished pouring the foundation. All the wood used in the concrete molds goes to the dump. And because those molds are mostly screwed together… no nails! Just gotta spend some time cleaning the cement boogers off of them. Beats the hell out of taking pallets apart.
It's a constant struggle finding lumber for me. I have no local sources, the furniture factory nearby (where I've been working and hopefully will again) use their scraps for heat, and I don't have a car. The latter may actually be the biggest problem. If I could just go to where the sawmills are, I could get plenty of lumber. We need some info in the lumber map for Denmark!
One thing you missed is a discussion on timing. Here in Utah, whenever there's a windstorm, I get on the local classified site, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc. and look for people who've had trees downed in the storm. Another thing to look out for is community trash days, where the waste management company allows residents to put whatever they want on the curb and they'll take it at no additional charge. A lot of places do this once or twice a year, and that's a great time to cruise around looking for people cleaning out garages, attics, etc. The trick with downed trees is to get on it as quickly as possible before the property owner starts breaking the tree down. It's a shame when you need 6-foot boards and you get there and the property owner has cut the trunk into 2-foot sections, so if you can get them to save you a few longer sections, you're in great shape.
I recently went to a lumber outlet/flooring manufacturer that sells various width and length offcuts by the pound. The pieces are too small to make much in the way of furniture, but it'd be great for end grain cutting boards, inlay pieces, small boxes, and the like. I got two decent chunks of birch, one of walnut and a very pretty stick of cherry for ~10. Would have been even less if I'd swapped the walnut for a different domestic wood.
My brother is a cabinet maker and about once a year he calls me and says come get some scraps. So I happily do the 3 hour drive and get some great pieces, mostly white oak, but every once in a while some nice walnut or cherry.
I’m excited that my name has shown up for the first time after recently joining the Patreon. Glad to be a part of the community. Thanks for the great content!
@@WoodByWrightHowTo dude you’re good to go. I’m stoked that I showed up! It’s the first time I thought to even look since joining around new years this year. I wasn’t trying to complain and really like how fast you respond to comments. It’s part of why your channel is so genuine without sponsor logos and a media intern/assistant actually responding for you. Thanks
You can rive very large diameter trees and get a huge yield. I process my own lumber for axe handles and it's very rewarding. If you're looking for tool handles you can get hundreds of future handles in a few days work. In my climate I have a big issue with cracking so I try to seal the lumber as fast as possible. With oaks I usually have to seal the faces of the lumber perpendicular to the lines of medulary rays. Other than endgrain that's where the cracks always seem to be on oaks for me.
After storms you may find downed trees that they will let you remove, I cut logs into cants, mostly the largest cuts I can get out of it, then resaw to sizes I want when I need it...
One place I've gotten some great pieces, usually small, but oftentimes expensive/valuable wood, are scraps from local school woodshops. If you give them a few bucks for it, you can even use it as charitable donation write off.
Probably not great sources for many, but here goes. Last fall I joined a makers space group. In the woodworking area, there's space for leftover project wood you don't want/can't store. Free for any member that wants it. I've found a bunch of useful bits for my French cleat changeover I'm doing in my home shop. An impractical place I sometimes get wood from is the side of major roads. Most of my workday involves driving up and down 2 major roads in the area. Every once in a while, a useful size chunk of something falls off someone's work truck or trailer and they don't come back for it. I usually wait a day or so to give the people who lost it time to come back and pick it up before I grab it. I also only take boards that are well off the road where I can pull over away from traffic so I'm reasonably safe. Remember, no piece of wood is worth getting killed for.
Month-end people move. Check the dumpsters in condo complexes. You will find lots of sheet goods and all kinds of other dimensioned lumber and panels, leather and vinyl sheets cut from furniture. Can get a lot out of a complex without a lot of search time.
Looking for free lumber on Craigslist I came across a free piano with a burlwood exterior. Note that the beautiful wood on the outside of pianos is almost always veneer over a nice, stable not very interesting looking wood. But I took it apart (I found out why it was free and beyond economical repair) and got some nice lumber out of it.
Lots of ideas here, but one challenge seems to be getting higher quality woods or getting a fair volume of wood. Seems like getting to know sawyers is the way to go. Are there any patterns as to how sawyers tend to work e.g. tend to have certain woods at certain times of year), when they tend to have wood (e.g. more in spring-summer, less in winter), volumes they tend to want to sell? i think i've figured out that their lumber will be green, so need to plan for air drying. Anything else about local sawyers useful to know? Thanks
they work with what they can get. so it is usually domestics. there is not annual flow. they often have a pile of logs waiting. so it is worth asking. what is coming up. or for them to keep an eye out for something.
Still new, forgive terminology. Have a local cherry and mahogany mini mill. I want to work with hard/pretty wood because it forces me to go slow and i do all by hand so makes it worth it. Should i strike a deal, maybe pay more than orangestorebad but i see few downsides otherwise. Do you agree?
I've been fortunate enough with Home Depot and the other evil place that starts with an L... They both have carts of lumber you can get for 70% off, you can also get free offcuts if you happen to walk past their cutting station and see half of a 4x8 sheet, ask em about it. Most of the time they'll let you have it because they can't sell it as a whole sheet anymore and they are too busy to cut it all down to the smaller craft panels they do sell. Now some of the lumber on the carts would be better suited for hockey sticks, but there still may be 5 or 6 feet of it that is straight as an arrow and gather enough of it over the months and you can make some really nice projects. Also watch the prices at the big box stores, sometimes it's cheaper to get a big 2x8x12 than it is to get the stuff you were after, then all you do is fire up the table saw or hand saw or teenage boy that's been bad, and cut it down to what you need/want.
If any one reads this and lives in or around Dartmouth Nova Scotia and know where to find cheap lumber or knows a sawyer with decent prices, PLEASE reply or update the list James has made. I am new to Nova Scotia and don't know any one. I don't have FB and don't plan to make an account.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo Thank you for the response, somehow I didn't see that pin when I looked. Unfortunately, for medical reasons, I'm not driving currently. 1 hour is not too far tho. I should shoot him an email, I'm still lost when it comes to prices for slabs, etc., so hopefully they are honest, lol !! Is there a price list or something of the sort for average cost of lumber? My above comment still stands tho, any one who reads this and can add to the NS list, please do so.
@@viracocha03 just check home depot or Rona online for same thing e.g. an 8ft 2x4 is $4.06CAD at the Rona in Halifax at present. i paid $30 for an 8ft 2x12 at Rona a month or so back. Lumber has come down a lot, since last year, but it always fluctuates - even in normal times.
@@johnmm I appreciate the response. Although construction lumber is not what I'm looking for atm. I would like to step up my wood working and looking to make a few small things with hard wood and a little contrast in color would be nice. I don't have a froe or anything like that to break down fire wood, so getting my hands on a couple slabs is what i would like to do.
its gotta be level (or it will dry crooked), off the floor and have air flow all around - 1/2" all round will do. Get a piece or 2 of 8ft of 3/4x3/4 (garden stake type stuff) lumber from the store and cut it into x" in length (x being the width of the lumber pile you're going to make). Thse are your stickers. stack as high as you have room, and stickers. Its a bit of work, but air dryed lumber is way better thank kiln dried lumber for hand tool woodworking.
