Hello from a new wood worker

Hello People, I am very new to this wonderful hobby and I have a few questions for you all, hope that's OK?

 

PS I live in the Isle of Man.

 

Paul

 

 

 

Hello Paul, welcome to the site your in the right place there are a tidy bunch of fella's on this site who are always willing to help so dont be affraid to ask, Iv'e only been turning for about 6 months a great hobby.

 

Paul..

Hi and welcome Paul

 

What area of woodworking are you interested in. Don't be afraid to ask questions someone is sure to come along and know the answer or point you to somewhere that you can get the information

I am interested in furniture making, and particularly if I can use reclaimed material. I hate to see good hard wood go to land fill as my plainer thickness-er can bring old wood back into great material.

 

Paul

Welcome Paul. Fire away with your questions - there is sure to be someone here who can help.

 

Richard

Hello and welcome Paul.

A man after my own heart "I hate to see good hard wood go to land fill" so do I and live very near one.

 

Good luck with your projects.

 

Bill.

Thank you for your kind replies to my post, I work as a coffee roaster and tea blender and have lots of large pallets dropping coffee and tea at my factory, its such a shame just to burn all of them so I plan to break them down and put them though my thicknesser plainer and use them for some projects. Do any of you use this kind of material?

Paul

Hi Paul and welcome.Sounds like you have an interesting and aromatic job!

 

Like Bill, I live quite close to the local landfill and often see large lumps of what looks like prefectly good timber being thrown away, so it's great to see someone making best use of the materials at hand. If you have a planer thicknesser I'm sure you don't need to be told to watch out for hidden metal objects in things like pallets. If you haven't already got one, I would invest in a metal detector and check every piece thoroughly before putting it anywhere near your nice sharp blades.

 

Look forward to seeing some projects, so don't forget to post some pics.

 

Simon

What an interesting job Paul.

When I was working I had access to machinery packing cases, I made a fence over 100ft long form these, at the time they were knocking a lot of houses down and I got floor joist for the post.

Behind where I live is a smallholding that has been neglected for quite a while but in the last year has been taken over by inheritance, the new owner is very much into re-cycling and has a contact for pallets and packing cases, he has done loads of fencing, garden furniture and greenhouse staging from these.

Some wood from pallets is not very good for anything else but if your pallets are coming in from the tea and coffee producing countries there could be some very good hard wood amongst them, I made a garden table many years ago from some wood that looked very much like teak that was a pallet, it lasted years without any treatment, the offcuts burnt like hardwood.

 

Bill.

I order coffee from brokers in the UK, the coffee is from all over the world as far as Australia to the central Americas and Brazil, the tea's I blend mainly come from Africa. I blend the tea to my own recipe called "Fairy Bridge" witch is a place in the I.O.M. If you Google Fairy Bridge Tea in the isle of Man, that's me! I roast my coffee in a Victorian coffee roaster and again blend my own coffee's. The pallets are some times hard wood. Thanks for the advise about the Metal Detector.

Paul