What are you building with your milled wood? merged

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One of my first wood working projects. Got a couple going on right now actually. Its red oak. Using one of my projects to hold everything flat. View attachment 976610

One of my first wood working projects. Got a couple going on right now actually. Its red oak. Using one of my projects to hold everything flat. View attachment 976611
Just saw this. Are you using a flattening jig? Free hand without letter templates? Wouldn't it just be easier without the jig?
 
I’m hoping to get set up here soon enough to start milling. looking into what it takes to get lumber graded and such as I want make lumber to build a house on my future land. With lumber cost what they are and the garbage that is sold in the big box stores I don’t want to have to buy a single 2x4. We are allowed to use ungraded lumber in out buildings but not in house construction. I also like the idea of cedar siding and that’s just entirely unaffordable.
 
Well I finally got around to making enough of my 6 year old Autistic Grandsons drawing/craft desk to take some photos.
I Milled this Norfolk Island Pine back in January, then had to wait for it to dry.
NIPmilling5.jpg

Decided to uses a draw-bolt construction method as his parents want to be able to eventually knock it down and store it away
Made 16 SS Barrel nuts from 20mm rod.
Barrelnuts.jpg

The screws are M8 round headed hex sockets
Pullthru.jpg

Partframe.jpg

Basic frame complete
Frame.jpg

Now I gotta work on the extendable legs and the top.
 
Not my work but I supplied the timber.
Back in Jan I started to mill this red ironbark (very hard).
ironbar3.jpg

I cut off the middle one of these pieces so that the log would fit on the mill.
ronbark5.jpg

I gave the piece to my wood carver mate and he used the middle one to make this
Irobarksculpture1.jpg
He started carving less than two years ago as a retirement hobby.
 
When turning Aussie hardwoods into cants the outer face cuts usually end up in the fire wood pile but when you get wood like this I fin it hard to do this.
Jarrah0.jpg

In this case the face cut slab looks like it might be thick enough to extract at least one moref narrower/thiner boards but the middle of this slab is quite thin and these boards will warp and cup like pretzels. I sometimes give these nicer looking cuts to my carver mate or the local community wood shop and the break it up for craft wood. However in this case I put them aside and let them ry our for a while and then resawed them with the smaller BS Mill.

I manage to get a few 1" boards out of the them but because they had warped slightly the last board from one slab came out about 7/8" thick at one end and just over 1/2" thick at the other so was just about to toss it out but I set it aside (I do a lot of that) and later had an ides to make this.
The leaf shape is similar to the leaves on Jarrah trees which is the type of timber.
Rawboard.jpg

I’m going to give it to my brother as a cartoucherie board as he's been asking me for one for years

Being leaf shaped means the small amount of twist and uneven thickness can just be part of the leaf shape design.
I cut it out on my bandsaw and at this point it was pristine ie no cracks, but I decide to let it dry out a bit a bit more so again, I set it aside.

A couple of weeks back I started shaping the sides using spokeshaves and a block plane.
Planing the flatter sides was impossible as it was not flat but the bandsaw tooth marks were easily removed with a belt sander with 120g belt.
Then I use an ROS 180 and then 240.
At this point I could see some short hairline cracks which I filled with epoxy.

Last week I was handling some nitric acid in the shed and I had gloves on, but as I walked past the almost completely sanded board I touched it with a glove and there must have been a tiny drop of acid on the glove because a match head sized black spot quickly developed. I raced over to the sink and grabbed the emergency bucket of water I keep partially filled and used the water to dilute the acid. At first this spread the black spot even further but it stopped at about the size of a 5c piece and later when the board had dried it more or less sanded out but ( but I can still see it!)- the two people I have shown the board to have not been able to find it.

So far it's had one coat of Liberon oil which when dry was cut back with a used 240g ROS pad, and then another coat of oil.
I'm really pleased with the way the Liberon has not at all darkened the timber colour.
I'm not going to do more than another couple of coats of oil as I don't especially want it to be super glossy and neither do I want it to be super pristine .
It is after all, just a sort of a large "cutting board".
FIrstcoat.jpg

For a quirky feature I have left the end of the leaf stem untouched so it shows the chainsaw marks and white latex paint use to seal the end of the log.
Stem.jpg

I've given it some "feet" turned out of some of the waste timber from around the leaf shape.
This will make it easier to pick up and carry.
Underside.jpg

Here's a grain close up.
The acid spot is still visible DANG! I hate that.
Closeup.jpg
 
When turning Aussie hardwoods into cants the outer face cuts usually end up in the fire wood pile but when you get wood like this I fin it hard to do this.
View attachment 996295

In this case the face cut slab looks like it might be thick enough to extract at least one moref narrower/thiner boards but the middle of this slab is quite thin and these boards will warp and cup like pretzels. I sometimes give these nicer looking cuts to my carver mate or the local community wood shop and the break it up for craft wood. However in this case I put them aside and let them ry our for a while and then resawed them with the smaller BS Mill.

I manage to get a few 1" boards out of the them but because they had warped slightly the last board from one slab came out about 7/8" thick at one end and just over 1/2" thick at the other so was just about to toss it out but I set it aside (I do a lot of that) and later had an ides to make this.
The leaf shape is similar to the leaves on Jarrah trees which is the type of timber.
View attachment 996297

I’m going to give it to my brother as a cartoucherie board as he's been asking me for one for years

Being leaf shaped means the small amount of twist and uneven thickness can just be part of the leaf shape design.
I cut it out on my bandsaw and at this point it was pristine ie no cracks, but I decide to let it dry out a bit a bit more so again, I set it aside.

A couple of weeks back I started shaping the sides using spokeshaves and a block plane.
Planing the flatter sides was impossible as it was not flat but the bandsaw tooth marks were easily removed with a belt sander with 120g belt.
Then I use an ROS 180 and then 240.
At this point I could see some short hairline cracks which I filled with epoxy.

Last week I was handling some nitric acid in the shed and I had gloves on, but as I walked past the almost completely sanded board I touched it with a glove and there must have been a tiny drop of acid on the glove because a match head sized black spot quickly developed. I raced over to the sink and grabbed the emergency bucket of water I keep partially filled and used the water to dilute the acid. At first this spread the black spot even further but it stopped at about the size of a 5c piece and later when the board had dried it more or less sanded out but ( but I can still see it!)- the two people I have shown the board to have not been able to find it.

So far it's had one coat of Liberon oil which when dry was cut back with a used 240g ROS pad, and then another coat of oil.
I'm really pleased with the way the Liberon has not at all darkened the timber colour.
I'm not going to do more than another couple of coats of oil as I don't especially want it to be super glossy and neither do I want it to be super pristine .
It is after all, just a sort of a large "cutting board".
View attachment 996298

For a quirky feature I have left the end of the leaf stem untouched so it shows the chainsaw marks and white latex paint use to seal the end of the log.
View attachment 996301

I've given it some "feet" turned out of some of the waste timber from around the leaf shape.
This will make it easier to pick up and carry.
View attachment 996300

Here's a grain close up.
The acid spot is still visible DANG! I hate that.
View attachment 996302
Beautiful wood and project. I wish I could get some for myself. If you're routinely using acid, it's a good idea to have a saturated solution of bicarb around. It would have converted the Nitric Acid to a salt which would have been more water soluble, less reactive with the wood and easier to remove. I know, hindsight.
 
Beautiful wood and project. I wish I could get some for myself. If you're routinely using acid, it's a good idea to have a saturated solution of bicarb around. It would have converted the Nitric Acid to a salt which would have been more water soluble, less reactive with the wood and easier to remove. I know, hindsight.

Thanks. I do keep about a gallon of saturate Sodium carbonate solution in a large plastic container but it was in a cupboard and I figured being such a small amount. a quick rapid dilution with water would be more than enough. I worked with concentrated acids in labs for most of my working life (purification and distillation of acids for 30 years) and that's what we always did when we got an acid burns or small spills. We did use neutraliser when disposing of waste acid or on larger spills.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to tell you something you already knew.
No problem - there were probably others reading this that may have learned something. :) so that has to be a useful thing.

I keep a half full bucket of water in my shop sink for when things go wrong when dealing with hot metal. I have 3 fire extinguishers (2 powder and one CO2) an a fire blanket but some times a half bucket of water is enough for a small fire and makes way less mess.
 
This is an offcut from a Marri (Eucalyptus) log I milled ~14 years ago.
It was hanging around my shop buried under a pile of offcuts.
Filling all the tiny cracks with epoxy was a bit of PITA but it was well worth it.
Its going to be a cheeseboard present for a good friend of ours.
ISide1.jpgISide2.jpg
 
This is an offcut from a Marri (Eucalyptus) log I milled ~14 years ago.
It was hanging around my shop buried under a pile of offcuts.
Filling all the tiny cracks with epoxy was a bit of PITA but it was well worth it.
Its going to be a cheeseboard present for a good friend of ours.
View attachment 997658View attachment 997659
Nice use for an old cutoff and very kind of you.

The top photo is similar in color to a freshly sawn Osage Orange, a very hard, heavy wood. Is Eucalyptus similar?
 
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