Recycled Lumber Using Old Telephone Poles 

I think those were the cedar poles that didn't use preservative treatments and on the other types they did treat I don't think they achieved the penetration they do today. More of a surface treatment.

​@@chadowens3254 you are exactly right

Many poles are salt treated. These appear to be of that type.

try craigslist

Reusing telephone poles and railroad ties is not always a good idea. They were intended to be kept dry or in well drained gravel in the case of railroad ties. Keeping them partially buried in damp soil when their preserative is worn out will encourage rot.

Call Fortis or other utility service companies and alot will be glad to recycle to you.

You should burn the scarp for energy or maybe turn it into a nice garden mulch.

Sure but only penetrates up to an inch into the wood from the surface, thus you see when they ripsaw to width the outer edge being so thick. Then again creosote is not as bad as one thinks seeing it has medical uses and comes from either coal the nastier stuff or plants the more ecological variety of the two types. Have played on railway when was a kid and never had a bad health effect from touching those sleepers and if you ever taken an expectorant, yep it has creosote.

yes or creosote

Creosote.

Creosote is nasty stuff. Do NOT use a router on anything with Creosote. You need to wear full body suits to keep the dust off your body or it will burn and itch like crazy.

It only goes into the first inch or so of the material (across the grain), unless there were deep cracks when the log was new. After it weathers long enough, it loses the nasty volitile solvents and such. Fresh creosote is a carcinogen as is stuff like used motor oil. It makes sense to treat it all carefully, and cut off the nasty parts. Its probably good to cut the end grain away especially, as the treatment soaks in more deep there. Some poles use a copper or arsenic or borade mix. Ymmv

@@garywheeler7039 cedar...no treatment!

@@pikehunter23750 Not really, as the Rail Road was giving away from ties when they sold the land for trails & people was grabbing them up like gold bars, mostly for reinforced retaining walls.

They said its cedar, the most rot resistant wood any woodworker know of, so even if it was treated it would still be in good shape, none the less they show how thick they chop off the sides at almost or at 1 inch.

LUIGI CRISTIANI The telephone poles are treated with the dangerous CREOSOTO to prevent it from rotting. The European Commission, by Directive 2001/90 / EC of 26 October 2001, has prohibited the sale to consumers of certain creosote due to their carcinogenicity.

@@wmc9722 Here in Southern California railroad ties are popular for landscaping. I often see ties in people's yards, black with creosote. Old utility poles are often used as well.

Creasote was tradtionally used to preserve the wood poles. The use of CCA is reatively recent. Neither chemical goes beyond the first inch or so of wood, whiuch would be trimmed off to create diimensional lumber. .

epistte Did not know this, I remember creosote was used in decking and supports exposed to weather in old cabins from what I learned a years back living in the snow. It totally dawns on me now; the antiquated technology probably wasn't up to have an electronic vaccum chamber half the size of an NFL field. Would the preservative solution eventually leach to the outer layers of the wood over time?

CCA has now been banned for residential use but it had an effective life of approximately 25 years. Creasote is now used in railroad timbers. It will leach into the ground over time. The leaching is minimal but I wouldn't use treated wood next to plants that I planned to eat.

epistte I was referring to the much older cabins built 50 60 plus years ago, creosote was the choice back then. Banning the CCA for residential makes perfect sense but I can't help but think it was replaced with the lesser of two evils with the type of pressure treated building material we use now.

CCA treated wood has been replaced by ACQ wood that is safer.

If they were treated cedar it would be darker color on the outside, still they cut off much as an inch on the sides when they sowed the final ripping step before doing final length cut.

It's nice seeing them re -purposed. We either saw them up, throw them in the dumpster or give them away. The local farmers like to get them

Creosote.

Many think creosote is bad, when in fact you may have taken medicine containing a minute amount of it, like an expectorant for one example.

I have cut a few dozen poles up with decent results out of the main body but have avoided the creosote ends other than cutting up one as a test. It cut as easily as the untreated portion but the stink of the sawdust and the resultant lumber has kept me from wanting to cut any more, though I'm thinking of quartering what I have so that I can use them for fence posts. I only have taken delivery of older poles that have the creosote just on the end in the ground and the rest of the pole being free of chemicals. About a third of the poles have had such stressful lives that they have stress fractures resulting in boards full of checks, good for fencing but not much else.

You don't have much going on in the brain do you?? Nowhere did they say it's for use in a home. When have you ever seen a fence in a living room???

LOL - it was mentioned early in the video the wood is also used in furniture. Careful who you throw the rock at, they bounce back kinda hard sometimes.

good observation

BC socialism

@@StephenMortimer Eh?