Cheapskate Salvaging

[Tazmaniandevil]

Being an IT type bod in my other life, as well as being a tight fisted old git, I tend to allow both lives to merge. Old broken circuit board is used instead of formica to burn rings etc. and I plunder old hard disks for their magnetic bounty booty.

So, question. How do others work their "real" life into their wood working? (obviously not those talented enough to be making a living at it)

 

[Chrispy]

Well my real life is Woodworking and I recycle the other way round, the waste wood and sawdust I burn for heat and put the ash on the garden to help things grow, the trees and large shrubs get cut down and taken back to the workshop, the tomatoese I eat!
Oh and I'm currently learning how to grow mushrooms on nothing but sawdust.

 

[monkeybiter]

Occasional attractive pallet wood, unistrut offcuts, discarded nuts and bolts and two turning comissions. I managed to fully salvage a PC out of a skip full of water, and an entire redundant PLC [lots of ram and cpus] but that's for other hobbies.

 

[Dalboy]

No longer work but still like to recycle where I can. I have just picked up 6 pallets and 3 scaffold boards. These will not be for turning but still used in other woodworking projects.
! of the pallets is very heavy so I suspect made from hard woods rather than the usual pine type woods you normally find.

 

[Bodrighy]

Old pewter bits and pieces from charity shops and boot sales, old furniture can provide some nice bits of oak, proper mahogany etc at times. I also salvage glasses to make condiment pots and pretty much anything that I think can be adapted or re-used in my wood turning. One of the demos I do at clubs is titled 'Turning on a shoestring' where I use wood etc that most would reject and other odds and sods to show how to think outside the pail. Same applies to tools, spanners and allen keys come in quite handy for some of my work.

Pete

 

[Dalboy]

Old pewter bits and pieces from charity shops and boot sales, old furniture can provide some nice bits of oak, proper mahogany etc at times. I also salvage glasses to make condiment pots and pretty much anything that I think can be adapted or re-used in my wood turning. One of the demos I do at clubs is titled 'Turning on a shoestring' where I use wood etc that most would reject and other odds and sods to show how to think outside the pail. Same applies to tools, spanners and allen keys come in quite handy for some of my work.

Pete

I,ve got some tools from allan keys and I have seen spanners being used for making tenons. Pewter is something that I want to have a go at after seing yours and others use it within their turnings.

 

[Bodrighy]

Making your own tools is a great way of saving money. be aware though if you are new to turning that using old files etc for tools is a massive no no as the metal is far too brittle. The tools I make myself are all made for work that has little pressure involved. The spanners are used as said for making specific sized tenons and the allen keys I use to make captive rings and very small hollowing.

Pete

 

[procell]

I recycle trees from the local council tree surgeon and offcuts from a local window frame maker. Both are more than happy to let me have as much as I want. I get a very wide variety of woods from the surgeon but the offcuts are mainly sapele.

 

[Tazmaniandevil]

I recycle trees from the local council tree surgeon

I do the same at work. Unfortunately our local clowncil chip and burn all the trees they prune or fell. I spoke with the tree officer, yes that's his title, and he told me health & safety prevented them from giving wood away in case anyone injured themseves with a piece of timber they supplied.
Honestly. You couldn't make it up.

 

[mseries]

It's one of my rules that everything I make has to use some material that's either been part of something else in the past (re-cycled) or I have found lying around either in my workshop or someone elses (an offcut/left over from another project) or elsewhere.

Sometimes the repurposed material is hidden such as a loose tongues and sometimes I make a feture of the reused material and don't attempt to disguise it.

 

[Bodrighy]

Interestingly I am doing a demo at the North Wiltshire Woodturners club tomorrow night on 'Turning on a shoestring.' Seems a popular subject for demos as I have been asked to do a few now. How to be a turner without spending much.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I recycle trees from the local council tree surgeon

I do the same at work. Unfortunately our local clowncil chip and burn all the trees they prune or fell. I spoke with the tree officer, yes that's his title, and he told me health & safety prevented them from giving wood away in case anyone injured themseves with a piece of timber they supplied.
Honestly. You couldn't make it up.

£1m's could be saved, and millions of tons could be saved from landfill. What's wrong with signing a disclaimer? The usable and burnable stuff that goes to our landfill is frightening. I was at the "recycling centre" one day with a good trailer parked next to a Transit pick up dumping a whole load of 3' - 4' lengths of good sized Leylandii. I was quickly informed that I wasn't allowed to take it.

 

[Bodrighy]

I was at the "recycling centre" one day with a good trailer parked next to a Transit pick up dumping a whole load of 3' - 4' lengths of good sized Leylandii. I was quickly informed that I wasn't allowed to take it.

Pity, Leylandii is a lovely wood to turn and can have some surprisingly good colouring in it.

Pete

 

[Tazmaniandevil]

Interestingly I am doing a demo at the North Wiltshire Woodturners club tomorrow night on 'Turning on a shoestring.' Seems a popular subject for demos as I have been asked to do a few now. How to be a turner without spending much.

Pete

That's my particular party-piece, because I never have much in the way of spare cash. I try to recycle as much as possible, and use free timber almost exclusively. My shed is full of wood collected (newly felled) mainly from work, but also from other sources, in various stages of drying. I rough turn a lot and pack it away in shavings inside paper bags. Storage is an issue though.

I also collect odd stuff to use as "project kits" from various sources. Travel mug kits are ££££££'s from suppliers, but I buy cheapo mugs from my local B&M store and dump the plastic surround.
My latest is balloon whisks from B&M at about 2 for a quid. They come with steel handles, which are easily removed.

Must remember to clean the sawdust before taking foties.

Tesco have a range of corkscrews & bottle openers for a couple of quid which can easily have their handles removed and replaced with wooden ones.
Glass jars have their uses too. I recently used a small paté jar as a top for a lighthouse. The light was a battery tea-light. (4 for £1 in Poundland)

It's not easy.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I invested in a decent chainsaw (Stihl) from new for the reliability and a bandsaw and I harvest most of the timber I turn myself. What I don't harvest tends to come from my turning clubs annual wood auction. The prices places like Axy want for blanks is absolutely obscene. The downside is the drying time but I get a kick out of knowing the entire provenance of a finished piece including which tree it came from.

Now, people in the village know I collect wood and frequently offer me any trees they have coming down. This summer I had a pretty mature cherry and a false acacia. Also there was my 60' ash that came down on Valentines day storms. That chainsaw was the best wood investment I ever made.

I also can resist a good skip

 

[dickm]

I invested in a decent chainsaw (Stihl) from new for the reliability and a bandsaw and I harvest most of the timber I turn myself................ That chainsaw was the best wood investment I ever made.

I also can resist a good skip

+1 for that. Except I seem to have five saws....................
And unlike Bob, I CAN'T resist a good skip :lol:

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

whoops....can't

 

[Kalimna]

Bob - if it's not a daft question, whereabouts do you use your chainsaw? I am, possibly inaccurately, assuming that you don't live on a large estate with a forest. Do you just look out for fallen trees in local woods or by the roadside? Or seek out permission from the landowner? Or is most of your stash from willing homeowners lopping garden trees?
The main reason I ask is that I have now moved from relative suburbia to outlying countryside, and there are a few trees (especially after recent high winds) that might be better served on a lathe rather than a chipper. And I'm thinking of acquiring a chainsaw.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[dickm]

Householders wanting trees reduced/removed are potentially a good source BUT be aware of the possibiliities of accidental damage. If you are going to work in someone else's garden, you really need appropriate insurance, which you'd probably only get if you'd done chainsaw training. All possible, but potentially expensive.
Fallen timber on open fields, if the owner is happy, are a better bet, but up here there are so many wood stoves that most landowners sell them for firewood. Still probably cheaper than buying blanks, of course!
Possibly best bet is to talk nicely to a few local tree surgeons, who might be happy to drop stuff off on your property to save them disposal costs and what you do (within reason!!) in your own garden is your business. And they are likely to come across some interesting home-grown exotics.