History of America's Forests

[Gary Katz]

This is a MUST WATCH video for every woodworker/carpenter. Trust me.

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/b...oryvideoB.html

Gary

[Lamar Horton]

Thanks Gary

[Andrew R.]

Very cool, I have been to Jamestown many times and the one thing I always wondered was how the settlers physically could cut and lash logs as a vertical log fence around their compound. Most of the settlers were not working people, graves are still being discovered there and there is proof of cannibalism as these people tried to survive Jamestown. As far as these big trees in Virginia, I've never seen them anywhere so I guess they have all been cut.
5% of the original forest remain…..sad.

[m beezo]

Neat to see the pictures. Man I would love to see a tree the size of some of the ones shown. Not so much when it was cut down but when it was still standing. Very neat.

I also have to wonder just how much good wood was just tossed into the fireplaces over the years to heat and cook with.

[Tom Bainbridge]

ive got an english carpentry book

to my imperfect recall (it might george ellis) and my memory aint good

but ive got it in my head, that redwood forests yielded as much as a million board feet an acre............ that can only be original growth

another american artical in a recent publication (early 2000) said that redwood was so abundant (at one time) that it was used for framing

[calvert]

ive got an english carpentry book

to my imperfect recall (it might george ellis) and my memory aint good

but ive got it in my head, that redwood forests yielded as much as a million board feet an acre............ that can only be original growth

another american artical in a recent publication (early 2000) said that redwood was so abundant (at one time) that it was used for framing

Tom, somewhere in my library is a publication giving harvest information for some redwoods cut in the early twentieth century and I am sure I can recall individual trees yielding 330,000 to 400,000 bd.ft.. Ah, to own just a couple of those, what a retirement plan.

[tom struble]

thanks Gary makes me feel both proud and sad at the same time for some reason,and yes i dig the music

[tomthetoolman40]

Some old growth pics.

http://www.google.com/search?q=old+g...iw=800&bih=445

[rogerg]

I live in an area (Pacific coast) where I still see lumber trucks rolling down the highway filled with logs. Once in a while you see some old growth logs on the trucks. Massive.
We are still cutting them down. There are thousands of those big old stumps all over the place here.
I have read many books on the logging industry in my area and at one time the Douglas Fir was selling at something like $10.00 per thousand board feet and Red Cedar was $1.00 a thousand board feet and everything else was worth nothing. Anything under 24 inches across the trunk wasn't worth cutting down.
I burn 2x4's that I have ripped out of houses here that have so many growth rings I can't count them. What a shame.

roger

[BeachBoy]

Well, don't burn it! Remill it! There must be something interesting you can make with it...

[BeachBoy]

My wife will inherit 40 acres that had 5000 fir and hardwood trees planted on it 20+ years ago. The foresters said they were supposed to thin out 50% of the trees after 5 or 10 years but they never got around to it. I figure that having the extra trees will result in slower growth and somewhat tighter rings, so I think we are going to just let them grow at their own pace. They are unlikely to be harvestable in our lifetimes anyway, but maybe in our kids or grandkids!

[dixonpeer]

Well, lumber these days certainly isn't what it used to be. Even to one only 68 yrs. old who's been in the building trades for a lifetime, what I saw early in my career would put to shame the lumber we get today. But the answer is, of course, engineered lumber. It can be made out of scrap, and it'll help save some of the great old trees that are left. Of course, it doesn't have that wonderful odor that I remember when cutting headers out of old growth doug fir many years ago. And the sugar pine...and Idaho pine...redwood for decking...old growth cedar...

[calvert]

Dixonpeer,don't forget the longleaf southern yellow pine and good old eastern white pine. Someday soon I may be putting up for sale my stash of all of those great ones you mentioned and several others.

I was just surveying a pile of South American Mahogany I bought in 1978, recalling that I paid just $ .97 bd ft for 5/4 rough in widths ranging from 14" to 18" and 14' long.

[Gary Katz]

I visited Jed Dixon before the JLC Providence show and he gave me lathe lessons. He designed a three-legged stool for me to make and gave me a piece of old growth yellow pine to make it from. The smell and feel of that wood was another-world experience. Visiting Hull-Oakes was the same kind of experience--seeing massive old-growth trees being milled had an emotional impact beyond words. The smell of the wood mixed with the smell of the hydraulics and the hot steam. That is a visit that everyone should try to make before the mill is gone. But also, if you haven't visited the redwood forests on the N. CA. coast, or Sequoia National Park...put that on your list. There is NOTHING like standing beneath one of those trees. Nothing.

I've visited homes in the Bay Area, the Cohen Brey Home is a good example, where all the panels, trim, doors, etc., are all made from that old-growth redwood cut from the Sequoia area when then were dropping those trees and making lumber and shakes out of them.

People had a whole different mindset then. Imagine trees being considered an enemy. You don't appreciate some things until they're gone.
Gary

[m beezo]

Gary,
you mentioned one of my dream locations to visit someday. have always wanted to make it to the Redwoods but have not yet.
Not sure if all states have it but Missouri has a program called either Historic Trees or Heritage Trees or something along those lines. They have the location of some of the largest trees in the state of each variety. I believe there was a way to find the locations of the trees so a person could visit them if he wanted to do so.
For a number of years I worked for a customer who had the 2nd or 3rd largest Sycamore besides their house. It may still be up although I know they were often having limbs come down in storms and at one time they had thought about taking it down when a neighbor began to complain about it taking out his house.
I have been amazed at many trees but the redwoods are still on my list to try to get a chance to see them.