Underwater Logging

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Roger Wilco

Roger Wilco

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2019
Messages
24
Location
Southern California
Has anybody ever gotten hold of some wood that used to be underwater? I heard that when reservoirs are built, whole forests were simply flooded and all that wood is still underwater. Cold and dark, with little oxygen in the water the environment actually preserves the wood. I would REALLY like to see some pens turned from that type of wood! I'm born and raised in Southern California. We don't have underwater forests that I know of except in Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe. And those trees were deposited there by a land slide.

-Ed-
 
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Roger Wilco said:
Has anybody ever gotten hold of some wood that used to be underwater? I heard that when reservoirs are built, whole forests were simply flooded and all that wood is still underwater. Cold and dark, with little oxygen in the water the environment actually preserves the wood. I would REALLY like to see some pens turned from that type of wood! I'm born and raised in Southern California. We don't have underwater forests that I know of except in Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe. And those trees were deposited there by a land slide.

-Ed-
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Should be quite a few that have been posted , but don`t know how to find them all . Lots of logs were transported on this continent by various river systems , some inevitably lost , and found again after 50-150 years . Have seen posts over the years for wood from the Suwanee river , the Rappahannock dam , Lake Michigan ? , the St Lawrence river , Douglas fir burl which was considered waste and dumped in a river , fir buried by a lahar about 4000 years ago from Mt Olympus , and probably others .

Some show zero change , some quite a bit , depending on oxygen and prescence or absense of organisms that find wet wood tasty . Underwater wood storage is fairly common in Japan , I believe .
 
A lot of trees (cocobolo, rosewoods and the like) are now underwater around the Panama canal. They are harvested by Coast Eco Timber, or others like TerraMai, see this vid. But I never heard of pen blanks from them, they work usually with bigger quantities.
 
A lot of trees (cocobolos, rosewoods and the like) are underwater around the Panama canal. They are harvested by Terra Mai (see this vid), Coast Eco Timber or others: they play with underwater chainsaws, they fell the tree but it goes up, funny. Never heard of pen blanks from them though.
 
Here you go:

Certified Irish bog oak Pen blanks. 6500 years old

I have for sale Irish bog oak pen blanks. Bog oak comes from the midlands of Ireland. Size: 3/4 x 3/4 x 5.5 inch. Blanks are kiln dry and have no cracks. Price for 5 blanks - $20.00 plus $5.50 for postage. Payment through PayPal. Delivery from Ireland to USA takes 5-7 working days. I have...
www.penturners.org

I have a few Huon pine blanks from Tasmania that is about 1000 years old, but have not been submersed.

That said, I cannot wait until a small 2 acre pit dries out near me. It had lots of willow and cottonwood. About 18 months ago, it filled with water from rain and has stayed flooded; and most of the trees died. Once it dries out, (which it almost is) I am going to see if the wood is worth anything. If not rotted, they should yield a nice looking blue gray color.
 
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Hey, great responses thank you all! $25.50 for five blanks from Ireland, eh? I might have to do that! For the moment, I just acquired a bunch of nice cutoffs from a neighbor. I'll work on those, but the information here is terrific!
 
LOVED the vid of TerraMai and the Coast Eco Timber pics! The bog wood link has a couple cool pics of a skull kit pen that was made with the wood. I'm gonna have to get some. 6500 year old wood is just too cool of a story to pass up. I wrote to a company called Timeless Timber last night as asked if they've got some leftovers so I could make some pens. We'll see what they say. They'll probably just ignore me, but who knows?

-Ed-
 
If you just want `old` wood , 30,000 years +or- , this is where you need to go . https://www.ancientwood.com/ . Generally doesn`t look much different than fresh wood , but exceptions exist of course . Note the small log size in the truck photo . I`m sure there must be pens made from it on the forum . Try searching` kauri pens `. Nothing tricky about turning it .
 
Very interesting, thank you for the info on Kauri. I think I saw a short vid with George Vondriska from Woodworkers Guild of America turning some kauri. Really pretty stuff! I shall write to ancientwood.com to see how much they'd give me or how much they'd charge for some cutoffs. So far, Timeless Timber hasn't given me the time of day, which isn't really surprising. These guys might be much the same. I'm small fry. They've got 50' long conference tables and what not on their site. Dealing with me would be a waste of time, but who knows?
 
Roger Wilco said:
Very interesting, thank you for the info on Kauri. I think I saw a short vid with George Vondriska from Woodworkers Guild of America turning some kauri. Really pretty stuff! I shall write to ancientwood.com to see how much they'd give me or how much they'd charge for some cutoffs. So far, Timeless Timber hasn't given me the time of day, which isn't really surprising. These guys might be much the same. I'm small fry. They've got 50' long conference tables and what not on their site. Dealing with me would be a waste of time, but who knows?
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I was recently asked by someone to make a pen (or two) with kauri and found this page at ancientwood.com. Pen blanks are available...not cheap but available. https://www.ancientwood.com/shop/pen-turner-blanks/#prettyPhoto
 
Oh my! I guess that explains why they ignored me! :) I should've been more careful when I perused their site. I just figured they only deal with larger orders for big projects and I didn't even search around. Doh! $130.00!!!!! WHAT? Neat wood, but there's no way I can justify that at this time. I'm only turning for fun at this point and I can't justify this cost especially when I can get 130 pen blanks from Rockler's "cheapo blank bin" for this same amount. The info is much appreciated, though! Thank you!
 
Given the coupk3 of dams that burs5 over there recently , the drone footage shows quite a few preserved trees emerging? Edenvill dam was one.
 
Roger Wilco said:
Oh my! I guess that explains why they ignored me! :) I should've been more careful when I perused their site. I just figured they only deal with larger orders for big projects and I didn't even search around. Doh! $130.00!!!!! WHAT? Neat wood, but there's no way I can justify that at this time. I'm only turning for fun at this point and I can't justify this cost especially when I can get 130 pen blanks from Rockler's "cheapo blank bin" for this same amount. The info is much appreciated, though! Thank you!
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Not as bad as you think. When you read through the listing, there are 10 blanks in the set for $130. While $13 per blank is too much for me it might not be too much for others.
 
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