Salvage Woods

[woodtreker]

I love making things from salvaged woods... Here is a pen from my neighbor's apple tree that had died and been cut down... I make several pens from this tree and a small jewelry box... Since the tree was so dead it was hard to find good wood... But it gave me some interesting figure...

 

[woodtreker]

Salvaged Woods

Here is another salvaged wood pen turned from hackberry and walnut... direct from my firewood pile... I discovered the spalted hackberry and also the beautiful figure in the walnut when playing around with a jig I made for cutting log into blanks... They never made it to the fireplace...

 

[woodtreker]

Salvaged Woods

Here is a segmented pen made from walnut and maple... Both of these are from cut offs from a sawmill that were due to be made into charcoal... Lovely pen... I have used these blanks for several pen styles but this is the Wall Street II...

 

[woodtreker]

Salvaged Wood

Here is the last for now of the salvaged wood series... This pen is from an old oak tobacco stick that was used for housing tobbacco here in Harrison County Kentucky... It even smelled like tobacco when it was turned... I made several of these for the local County Judge Executive for Christmas gifts...

 

[sgimbel]

Your pens are beautiful and your photography is outstanding.

 

[Nate Davey]

Beautiful job. I also like using firewood, sure is cheaper than paying for blanks and much more satisfying.

 

[kennspens]

i've rescued some nice spalted oak and sycamore fom my wood pile and made bowls from them, but my favorite salvage was a cherry burl i found at a gas station! it must've fallen off a tree surgeons truck or something, but i"ve made several pens and bowls from it.

 

[leestoresund]

Salvage wood

My neighbor had cut down an oak so I got some of it.
There was a lot of spalt in some of the pieces so I made him a pen out of the spalted portion.

He tells folks that's his $3,500 pen ('cause that's what it cost to take down a few trees in his yard.)

Lee

 

[rjwolfe3]

Very nice pens. I love using everyday wood that I find.

 

[khogan16]

Very nice I Like when people make pens with two different woods

 

[nava1uni]

Very nice wood, the grain and combinations are really nice.

 

[dhammis]

Here is the last for now of the salvaged wood series... This pen is from an old oak tobacco stick that was used for housing tobbacco here in Harrison County Kentucky... It even smelled like tobacco when it was turned... I made several of these for the local County Judge Executive for Christmas gifts...

How did you get the engraving on it? Did you take it some place or do you have a tool to do that? I'm new to turning but I have a lot of requests from friends and family to make pens that have their names on them.

 

[Karin Voorhis]

wonderful wood finds and great pens made from them. your photos are great too

 

[KD5NRH]

So what method is everybody using to get the wood from branch to lathe?

If it's big enough, I start ripping about 1/8" at a time from a side until I hit good heartwood, set it on the new flat and rip another side the same way, then set the fence somewhere around 7/8-1", cut slabs, then rip those down to square blanks. Anything too small to bother with that goes straight on between centers and becomes a round blank.

I have access to a pretty much unlimited supply of mesquite, all standing, some dead, so I have a lot of opportunities for pieces too narrow to make much other than pens. windfall pecan and standing dead oak are reasonably available on our land as well, but any time I can't find just the mesquite branch I want, the neighbors are happy to share theirs.

 

[WhiteHare]

jig for cutting logs into blanks

Here is another salvaged wood pen turned from hackberry and walnut... direct from my firewood pile... I discovered the spalted hackberry and also the beautiful figure in the walnut when playing around with a jig I made for cutting log into blanks... They never made it to the fireplace...

Hey woodtreker, what kind of jig are you using. I'm trying to cut up some wild cherry logs that have been down for a couple of years.

Richard

 

[bitshird]

Very nice pens, found wood beats buying it, I like your apple pen, very pretty, and your photography is great.

 

[woodtreker]

I had it laser engraved at a local compnay that does trophies... I created teh art word from a line drawing of the courthouse and the lettering... It cost me about $8.00 per pen since I did several pens... There are folks on this website that do the laser engraving at a great price... Time was of the essence for me so I used a local business...

 

[woodtreker]

I have three different jigs that I use...
1. Bandsaw resawing jig for logs to lumber... I found it on the Internet and made modifications for my taste...
2. Table Saw jig that looks like a small panel sled but I have a vertical side that is 3/4 inch from the blade for cutting out the blank to right width... I have hold downs for the blank but not required... (have the same thing for the band saw but like the table saw better...)
3. Table saw jig that also look like a small panel sled that I use to cut the blanks to the correct length... I have a hold down for the blank...

I will take some pictures and post...

 

[Rick_G]

Got to love that free wood. Some of my nicest pens have been saved from the fireplace. Nice looking pens.