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Now this is one present I've waited a while to open.....

Stuart Ablett

Stuart Ablett

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Tokyo Japan
........ one of my wood stacks from my "Logging in Tokyo" days :D

I need to make some stuff up for a gift, and I wanted to use some of my wood, has been up on the roof nearly two years, so it should be dry.

open_stack1.JPG open_stack2.JPG open_stack3.JPG
I took three like this down to the Dungeon, I hope to get some nice boards out of them. I think they came through the air drying stage fairly well, the ends have a bit of damage, but that was to be expected, I guess.

Four of my six stack were fine, but two stacks, the two without tin roofs, well to my horror, the covers have failed BADLY! :eek:

I tore the stacks apart, and I found..................BUGS! :doh:

I tore all of the bark off of the pieces (should have done that when they were green) and did some STOMPING :D

This is what the bugs look like..........

wood_bug2.JPG wood_bug1.JPG wood_bug3.JPG

Some kind of wood borer I guess.

I opened each stack, well I have one yet to do, and I restacked everything, and found only a few more bugs, but they were not on the wood that I'm drying, but between the 2x4s under the stacks, between the concrete and the 2x4, I guess that is where the moisture is.... :dunno:

I'll show the boards I took down to the Dungeon, when they have been worked on a bit.

Yep, this gift to myself was about two years in the making :wave:

Cheers!
 
I was wondering when you were going to break into some of the upstairs stash. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. :)
 
Chris Barton said:
Japanese Beetles?
Click to expand...

She Rubs you yeah yeah yeah :D

Some kind of wood boring beetle, they go between the bark and the wood to lay eggs. I've been through all the wood, any bark still left on that I could remove I did. The beetles were only on the wet wood as well, none on the dry, under the tin roof stacks.

Cheers!
 
Congrats Stu. Looking forward to seeing what you did all that work for. How exciting!

When you say that the covers had failed badly, was any of the wood rendered unusable? Did you lose the whole stack or just a few boards?
 
Hey Mark

I think I've lost a few boards......... to the vortex :D

The filthy dirty, spalted pieces will get a nice ride on the lathe for sure :thumb:

There may be some discoloration but it may (I hope) just add some interest to the boards.

Some of the boards had real live MUSHROOM growing on the undersides:doh:

Oh well those two stacks were not the picks of the litter anyway, the other 4 stacks look in great shape.

Cheers!
 
Very cool Stu. I think that logging adventure of yours is going to be around for a long time to come. Looking forward to the next installment.

Happy Holidays
 
Ah yes - the Logging in Tokyo episode. One of the entries that kept me coming back to your website, Stu. On one of my revisits I saw that you had taken up woodturning ... and saw a familywoodworking.org sticker on your lathe. The rest is history.... :rolleyes:

Looking forward to the projects that come out of your "urbanwood". :)
 
Thanks guys, it sure was an adventure, hard to believe that started about 2 years ago, my time flies :rolleyes:

I got the wood down to the Dungeon and cut it up a bit, and took the edges off of it.

The Festool system works great for this, and there is only a little sawdust to deal with.

edge_removed.JPG

I used the new ripping blade I got for the saw, man does it ever slice through the wood compared to the usual fine cut blade, but, I've got a gripe, the usual blade is 2.2 mm thick, the ripping blade is 2.5mm thick, so it tore up the rubber strip on the guide rail, which sucks. I dunno if I'm going to have to replace it or what........ :dunno:
ripping_blade.JPG

I squared the ends up after ripping the edges off and checked with my moisture meter........

8_percent.JPG
...... the light comes on if I switch it over to 7%, so that means the wood is at 8% moisture content, not bad for air drying, I think.:thumb:

ready_to_joint_etc_stock.JPG
Here is the stock I got out of the three boards, I think I'll get enough stock for a couple of serving trays I want to make as a present for my friend.

Stay tuned! :wave:
 
The boards, for the most part, are too large to fit through my planer, so I cut most of them in half or such, around any existing knots (not many!) etc. I got them nice and flat, and then I ripped them or re-sawed them in half, and came up at 15mm (9/16").

blue_keyaki_boards.JPG tray_bottoms.JPG
I'll be making at least two, serving trays, maybe four, see how it goes.


Here is a shop of the Dungeon at work..........

still_do_faltwork.JPG
...... just want to prove that I still do flatwork! :D

Sure is nice to have the shop set up, jointer, planer, resaw, planer, then joint one edge, cut to size, and I'll get a glue up going!

Cheers!
 
Hi Stu

So far very nice...I'm waiting to see what will come-up from those boards...

I remember that you made some special jig with your chain saw to slice the trees that you got free of charge...

With the temperature/humidity combination that you have in Tokyo during the summer...anything can grow between those boards....it's like an incubator...I hope that you don't have so much damage on the rest of the pile...

Regards
niki
 
Thanks guys!

Vaughn, it is blue plastic! :rolleyes: :D

Love that hammer, brought it back from Canada, I found it in the middle of the road years back, I was maybe 15 years old, walking to school one day. I bet some guy left it sitting on the bumper of his pickup and it fell off, bad for him, good for me!
 
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