Looking for some ideas.....

Stuart Ablett said:

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This too is Keyaki, but a very special piece of wood, it is grown that way, on purpose, they wrap the tree with sticks and rope and then let it grow for a fairly long time, then they dry it and strip all the bark off, sand it then put a lot of clear coat on it. If you were to buy a piece of wood like this for you house these days I bet it would cost over $10,000. There is no used market for this stuff.
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That special piece looks like it would make a wonderful floor lamp (or two or three), or perhaps a bed post. I hope it doesn't become firewood!

That picnic table should have resale value. (Be glad they don't want it mailed to the states).

Think of the lumber you could get from this lodge in Glacier National Park!

"There is no used market for this stuff."
What a shame. It is a beautiful house on a nice piece of land. There is some really nice lumber in that framing. Seems a crime not to re-purpose it in some useful way. I'd kill for that stone table and seats. Do you know what will happen to the land?

Ted Calver said:

"There is no used market for this stuff."
What a shame. It is a beautiful house on a nice piece of land. There is some really nice lumber in that framing. Seems a crime not to re-purpose it in some useful way. I'd kill for that stone table and seats. Do you know what will happen to the land?

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The death tax laws here are bad, really bad, I think it's over 70% tax after the first $400,000 or so, so if your land and buildings are worth say $1.4 million dollars, you don't pay taxes on the first $400,000 then you have to pay 70% on the remaining million dollars. Thus to keep the land and house, you would have to come up with $700,000 cash to pay the government. When most of your value is in the land and house, how are you going to do that? Well you don't, you demolish the house chop down the trees and sell the land as bare earth, if you are lucky enough to get the $1.4 million that the government says it's worth, then they take $700,000 of it, and you keep the rest, and now you have to try to find somewhere to buy a house for that much money, usually it won't be in the area your house and land was in, and you up root your family and move to the suburbs outside of Tokyo.
It is a real problem here, but the government can't give up their bonus check of death taxes. There are some ways around it, but they take many years and a lot of lawyer type work, most people just don't look that far ahead.

Stuart Ablett said:

Well the plan changed, I went this morning, and I just got back, some pictures.....

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If you were to buy a piece of wood like this for you house these days I bet it would cost over $10,000. There is no used market for this stuff.

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I don't understand this comment... If it would cost over $10,000 new, why on earth would there not be a used market? I would think that if it is $10k new, then someone else would be happy to pay $4-5k for a used one. Or even $1000 for a used one. It's gorgeous! Is it damaged? Is it grooved on the back? It looks like it is possibly part of a partition wall but I can't see for sure. If not, I'm liking the lamp idea. Hope you can get those out without too much damage.

best,
...art

Geeze...so I guess there's no selling your house and property to your kid for a dollar in Japan.

Art Mulder said:

I don't understand this comment... If it would cost over $10,000 new, why on earth would there not be a used market? I would think that if it is $10k new, then someone else would be happy to pay $4-5k for a used one. Or even $1000 for a used one. It's gorgeous! Is it damaged? Is it grooved on the back? It looks like it is possibly part of a partition wall but I can't see for sure. If not, I'm liking the lamp idea. Hope you can get those out without too much damage.

best,
...art

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OK let's think about this, the whole guild mentality still very much exists here, the carpenter would NOT buy a used piece, because that would put his supplier of the new piece out of business. Most likely the carpenter's grandfather bought new pieces from the other guy's grandfather etc, and they all collude to make sure the prices are very high and there are no other suppliers. The way of Japan for so many things.

wow and we thought our gov had problems,, our estate tax setup isnt anywhere close to the evil you mention in japan.. doesnt make sence that the people would allow such things to go on stu??

larry merlau said:

wow and we thought our gov had problems,, our estate tax setup isnt anywhere close to the evil you mention in japan.. doesnt make sence that the people would allow such things to go on stu??

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I don't want this to get overly political, but if one is honest, Japan is far from a democracy, lets leave it at that.

There is a guy that lives at the end of my road that would come take that whole house down and rebuild it some where else. Those roof rafter beams look like they have a bunch of good lumber in them.

Stu,

You sure know how to make a person GLAD that they live in "the Good Ole USA."

Enjoy,
JimB

Chuck Thoits said:

Those roof rafter beams look like they have a bunch of good lumber in them.

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That's what I was thinking Chuck.

Jim C Bradley said:

You sure know how to make a person GLAD that they live in "the Good Ole USA."

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I'm thinking the same about Canada... I suspect I know where Stu will retire!

OK back to the wood

I went and got the first two pieces of the wood from the house, I'll get the very large chunks this week I guess.

The first piece is certainly Keyaki, or Zelkova, I'm sure I can make a couple of nice picture frames from it. The second piece the "Tokobashira" or Alcove Post the bumpy one that I though was also Keyaki certainly is NOT. It is freaking heavy, I could not believe how heavy it was, I thought I was lifting up a solid concrete post or something like that.








Some pics of the post in my storage area.

I cannot believe how heavy this is, certainly not what I expected.

I cut off one end of the post, as it has several cuts and mortices in it, I was surprised at how hard it was to cut, and the sawdust had a sweet spicy smell to it.

I then cut some pieces on my SawStop and bandsaw, even Big Blue worked at cutting this stuff.

Here is a larger chunk that I've cut and then handplaned.

That is with the florescent lighting, next is with the flash which is closer to the natural color.....




Endgrain shots

I made up some blocks of various woods that I have here to see how much the each weigh.

The blocks are 2cm square by 9cm long.


Canadian Hard Maple


Locally harvested Red Keyaki


American Walnut


Rosewood from a German rifle maker


Dunno wood from the Alcove post


The lot with their respective weights, the Dunno wood is certainly the heaviest.

Now with my lovely wife I've done some online research, and I think that this is Rosewood, but it is the heavy hard stuff, in Japanese they call it "****an" or Rosewood, or Red Sandalwood. I've come to the conclusion that it is Real Rosewood, from Brazil, scientific name is Dalbergia Nigra. Looks like this wood is now very closely controlled and almost unharvested.

Well what do you all think, any ideas?

I know that the house is old, I think at least 40 years, could be older, and I know that there is a lot of trade between Japan and Brazil as so many Japanese moved to Brazil in the past.

Well thats the update for now.

Cheers!

Wow.

Hmm, ship it to this guy, maybe you can work out a trade...

With the Japanese connection to Brasil (which I confirm from the Brazilian side), this wood could be ipe (pronounced e-pay), a Brazilian hardwood that is currently popular in the USA for decking and flooring. The specific gravity is 1.0 - one piece will float (barely), and another will sink. It is extremely hard - I had a new set of HSS knives in my planer, and had to plane about 3 feet of ipe - what could happen in only three feet? Answer, destroy the blades (I was too lazy to change them out for the harder blades I keep for ipe and the like). It is so hard, that bugs and moisture cannot get into it... ipe can be put in direct contact with the ground, and still has a life expectancy of more than 20-30 years. The end grain does check, so the recommendation is to seal it within minutes of cutting (anchor seal or whatever)

The color of ipe varies quite a bit. I don't recall a smell (good or bad), but the powdery sawdust tends to be a funny color, and that which gets on your t-shirt, turns red when you sweat into it. Takes multiple washings to clean the red color out of the shirt.

See http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/ipe.htm for more information than you want on ipe, including several pieces that I donated to the study (and a small bowl that I turned from ipe only because people said ipe was too hard to turn).

When left exposed to the weather, ipe will age much like teak or cedar, but you can power wash ipe years later and oil it for the "mahogany" look. When finished like indoor furniture (film finish or oil) it has the rich brown look like your sample.

I recently made a coat rack that was nothing more than a board with a narrow shelf on top of it (really decorative element rather than usuable) and used door knobs from the cabinets throughout the house that was also tore down for the actual hangers. I think it was only about 30" long and shipped in a small but long box.

Doug

Charlie Plesums said:

With the Japanese connection to Brasil (which I confirm from the Brazilian side), this wood could be ipe (pronounced e-pay), a Brazilian hardwood that is currently popular in the USA for decking and flooring. The specific gravity is 1.0 - one piece will float (barely), and another will sink. It is extremely hard - I had a new set of HSS knives in my planer, and had to plane about 3 feet of ipe - what could happen in only three feet? Answer, destroy the blades (I was too lazy to change them out for the harder blades I keep for ipe and the like). It is so hard, that bugs and moisture cannot get into it... ipe can be put in direct contact with the ground, and still has a life expectancy of more than 20-30 years. The end grain does check, so the recommendation is to seal it within minutes of cutting (anchor seal or whatever)

The color of ipe varies quite a bit. I don't recall a smell (good or bad), but the powdery sawdust tends to be a funny color, and that which gets on your t-shirt, turns red when you sweat into it. Takes multiple washings to clean the red color out of the shirt.

See http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/ipe.htm for more information than you want on ipe, including several pieces that I donated to the study (and a small bowl that I turned from ipe only because people said ipe was too hard to turn).

When left exposed to the weather, ipe will age much like teak or cedar, but you can power wash ipe years later and oil it for the "mahogany" look. When finished like indoor furniture (film finish or oil) it has the rich brown look like your sample.

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Thanks Charlie, but it is most certainly Rosewood, I got the book about identifying wood and the pic of the endgrain and the endgrain I'm looking at are almost exactly the same. In fact I'd say it is Indian Rosewood. The is worth a few pennies for sure!

I went and got the long beam, the Hinoki, or Japanese Cypress.



All in the truck I rented to go get the wood. Filling my little van with this stuff would have been a bit crazy I think.
The truck rental for 12 hours cost me 7,035 yen, all in and I used 900 yen of gasoline, all said and done, less than 8000 yen, and a much better option than beating up my little truck. I also bought several 5 m/16' long pieces of steel for another project. If I get these on the little van I have to have them cut in half, and they charge 500 yen a cut, so that would cost me an additional 2000 yen to cut the four pieces I bought.


You will notice the groove cut to the pith in the log, that is to minimize splitting, it seems to have worked.

I have the one short piece to work on first, I can run that though my bandsaw and slice it up into slabs. How thick should I make the slabs do you think? I was thinking that about 1" thick would be good, but maybe I should make them 2" thick with the option of cutting them thinner later?


There they are all piled up near the Dungeon entrance. Once I get the sushi shop's stuff out of my storage area things are going to change down in the Dungeon a bit, I'm going to move my sheet good and wood storage up into the 1st floor area, this will make moving that stuff around a lot easier and I'll get some space I want in the Dungeon!!

Cheers!

Stuart Ablett said:

I have the one short piece to work on first, I can run that though my bandsaw and slice it up into slabs. How thick should I make the slabs do you think? I was thinking that about 1" thick would be good, but maybe I should make them 2" thick with the option of cutting them thinner later?

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I would think that the wood is already well seasoned by now, after all those years inside the house. Did you check the moisture content?
So cutting them into slabs would be just for your own projects + to make them easier to work with, and not for drying? Generally I find 1" to be what I primarily deal with but you do still want the occaisional 6/4 or 8/4 stock. So I agree that you should make at least SOME of them into 8/4 slabs.

Well, I was really hoping it was the cypress, but upon further inspection I'm fairly sure it is just Douglas Fir Oh well, I can still make some nice boards out of it, I will most likely try from some real slabs, then maybe some outside benches or something....?

Stu, I know I am late to the game, but not knowing what you can do with the i carve, Pete Simmons could burn her parent's picture along with the house in the background. This could be the slide lid to a box. Not knowing the woodworking skills of your buddy, but could boxes be sent to him flat and he assemble them at his house? Even shelves/shadow boxes, those types of things. It becomes a major responsibility doesn't it. Know you have great ideas supplied and in your own head, looking forward to what you come up with.








Jon