Lumber for Free

  Lately I have read several blog where the writers have been on the look out for free wood. Last spring I gathered some 2 x 8 lumber from the framing of a house in our neighbourhood.  I didn't sneak in after the workmen left and help myself to lumber in stacks waiting to be used, I wondered over in the evening and collected a bunch of the off cuts that where in the dumpster.  I picked up a couple of dozen 12 to 14 inch pieces of stud grade spruce.  

  Recently the Ancaster Senior Achievement Centre has been under going a major expansion and the contractors left a big pile of these 2 1/2 inch by 6 1/2 by mixed lengths up to 24 inches, pieces of quality spruce in our wood working shop.

I cut the profile off with my band saw and then cleaned it up with my jointer.

   The quality of the lumber is pretty good. It is being used for the roof of the extension and so it is sort of "tongues in grooves", and it appears to be bolted together since some of the pieces have pre-drilled holes.  I brought a half dozen of the pieces home to work on in my shop and found them pretty good.

 

  Some of the pieces were really just fire wood by the time I got the checking cut off the end and worked around the bolt holes, but I got some nice pieces none the less. On the left you can see 5 half inch pieces and all but one is clear.  I will make those pieces into a small box and the piece of the left is a glue up that I am going to make into a shallow bowl or tray, I haven't decided yet.

  Initially the pieces I brought home looked as though there would be more usable wood than it turned out.  However, the price was right and with care during prep and finish this wood will make some nice little projects.  Saving money is good and not wasting money is better.  If we didn't use the wood that was left from the roof it would have ended up in land fill somewhere. 

   Even the stuff too rough to use in the carpentry shop will end up in my chums fire place. Waste not: Want not.