You asked for it, you got it.  Again!

Announcing a new wood trade to celebrate getting a bunch of requests.  That and some of you have been boasting about big wood scores.

Ladies and gentlemen, YOU are the reason Woodturners Resource exists.  We want to reward our participants by having another wood trade.

This trade is open to all members, even new ones.

Here is how it works:
     Go to the post office and obtain a flat rate box.  (They are free, stock up.)  Unfortunately, the Flat Rate Boxes are only good within the US, and there are strict cross border requirements, so this trade will be restricted to members inside the borders of the USA.  (So sorry to have to do this    )
     Post in this thread and Send me a PM saying what size and how many Flat Rate Boxes and your home state.  To keep things straight, use the subject,

WOOD TRADE

for the PM
     You must designate whether you want to trade one MEDIUM or LARGE flat rate box, one of each or 2 of either! I will be keeping 2 lists, one for Medium, and another for Large.
     Cut some of your local wood to shape and size so that it will fill that box. Be sure to

LABEL

what wood it is!
     Just after the deadline I will post a list of the partners so you know to whom you will send your box.  PM your partner and give them your address.  Get your box in the mail by the deadline and then sit back and wait for a similar box to arrive at your house.  You have 2+ weeks to decide and get your box packed, and another week to go to the Post Office.  Don’t sign up if you are not going to ship on time.

Names will be put into random.org to assign your partner.  Once those names are announced, if you want, you may ask your partner in the PM to see what their preferences are if you have a choice of what to ship and then fill their desires, or simply surprise your recipient.  Since this is a Partner Trade, everyone knows who is sending to whom.  If you are not giving a choice, have your box packed by Sunday.

So, Post that you are participating,  Fill those boxes, and Let the trades begin.

Deadline to have names and box sizes in:       Sunday, 9/21/14, 10am PDT
Partners will be announced later that day.

Wood in the mail no later than:                     Saturday, 9/27/14

Post here when you ship and again when your receive your wood.  Don't forget to thank your partner.

If you go to the Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or website, print a label and pay on line, you can save $1.05 medium or $1.55 large on the postage and have your carrier pick it up at your house.

IMPORTANT!!  PLEASE READ!!  There are lots of creepy crawlies that have infested much of our wood here in the USA.  Because of that fact, borders have tightened on raw wood.  Even within the country I understand that the PO is watching things a bit more closely.  Besides we don't want to be responsible for the spread of insects that can devastate our supply of raw material.  I would ask that everyone PLEASE remove all bark from your wood. Do NOT send any Walnut or Ash. Both woods are under various quarantines.  Do NOT ship any wood that has obvious borers, or other bugs, present.

I would further suggest that you fully tape all the seams and corners of the box so that any critters that do make it through your diligent inspection will be contained until it arrives at its destination.  If you used a sealer on the end grain, place the wood inside a plastic bag in the box.  The PO gets suspicious about boxes with oily residue.




If we have several members in Canada that are interested, we can have a separate Canadian Trade.

I'll be in for a large box.   I recently got hold of something I'd like to share.

Do you think there is any intrest in cypress knees?

Does it matter if they are green ?

I am in for a medium

I'd like to participate. I am in for one large and one medium from NC. (pm sent)

Count me in.  I'll do large or medium--or both--whichever.
I have lots I can share.

PM Sent.  Medium box.

And if it's OK, here is a story about what I'm going to send to (to be deterred)


The reason we bought our land to build our house was because of huge tree that was on it.  We've driven past this place for years, we know the tree turns fire red in the fall.  When the place went up for sale, we got it.  We went to work identifying the tree.  We came up with a Black Tupelo, against all suggestions that this tree will not grow here.  Carlos, Tx to be specific.

Fast forward a few years.  We had a big storm come thru and break a limb off.  I started looking for advice on how to Dr. this tree.  Most of what I got was estimates to cut it down.  A name came up several times, of a guy at Texas A&M.  It took me some time to find his number.  When i did I told him the situation and he assured me that it was not the tree I thought it was because they do not and will not grow here.I insisted that it was, and even answered all of his questions correctly that still led things to this type of tree.  he said he really doesn't suggest fixes for trees so he wasn't interested.  Later that day he called back, and said I had his curiosity turned upside down and he could get this out of his head.  He also said, that several years back, there was a rumor of one of these trees growing somewhere in the Navasota River bottom, and a group of students did a research project to find it but never did.  This added even more rule to his curiosity, so he asked if he could come see this tree and take some samples, and in exchange, he would give us correct advice on how to doctor the tree.

He showed up that evening.  I had a ladder ready for him to go up.  He stood back and said that I was correct, that it is what i claimed it to be.    He climbed all over it, took a lot of measurements and took some samples for some lab work.

Over time, we didn't hear anything back but always wondered what his lab work was all about.  Then one day, we came home to a package on our porch.  It was all kinds of paperwork, some of the samples mounted in some holder things, some dan paperwork and reports connecting it a group of trees in Louisiana somewhere and all kinds of info about this type of tree, and some paperwork from the research project.  Most likely, our tree was the tree that was being searched for in the project.

A couple of summers ago, Texas had a very dry summer.  We lost a few oak trees, and all of Texas lost a lot of trees.  The following spring, only half of our big tree came out.  he half that had the injury never got leaves.  Last spring, the same thing happened, but a few months later, all the leaves died but did not fall off.

We contacted the Texas forest service about the tree.  They came and looked at it.  Again, verified that we were still correct about the species, and also said that it had died, and that it was most likely just from old age.  They believed that someone had to have brought it as a small transplant to that very spot, and for it to survive this long, and get that big, it must have a tremendous water supply.  We do know that when we dug to install our septic, we could easily dig 10 feet deep, yet the neighbors on both sides of has had trouble going past three feet deep.  So there just be an underground rock formation and we happen to be on top of the deepest part, so all the water going into the ground was feeding our tree.

We finally had to take it down several weekends ago.  it was quite a feat.  If you believe in pray first, then cut, we did.

So now, I'm working on harvesting this tree, so it will continue to live.  I do not have a big snuff machine (yet) to handle the large chunks.  I'm sharing some now with guys in our local club.  We've managed to make about 6 slices of the trunk, 18 inches long, and the one that we have let flop on it's flat side, has become an immovable object.  We're going to try to quarter it next weekend.  We did manage to cut a deep groove in it and drove a handful of steel wedges to see if it would split.  I think all of the wedges are somewhat thinner and this chunk is still not split.

I would dearly love to see if I could get one of these chunks to Dennis (haven't spoke to him in awhile. do you still have your monster machine?)  He's got the only machine that I could see that could handle one of these chunks.  But again, i have no idea how I would ever get one of these off the ground and to a shipping company.

I'm choosing a medium box based on some slabs that I'm working on slicing off with the chain saw I have.  A club member with a monster orange beast saw is doing the slicing of the trunk for me.

I hope it was OK to put this story about my tree and what I'll be sharing.  And I hope it will be OK to ask whoever gets it to send back a picture of the result of a little piece of our special tree still living on.

I know I haven't been on here in a while.  Life has been real busy this past year.  I still have the dream of a clean shop and a Mustard Monster.


The chunk shown was the first one we were able to harvest. It would take a small crane or forklift to pick this thing up.  The goofy guy is me, and with me is my almost 3 miracle grandson.  The deeper we got into the tree, the wilder the grain became.  Some that we cut yesterday had a marbled grain pattern.